Category: Public Media

Source: Radio New Zealand

The dogs that killed a woman in Northland yesterday came onto a neighbour’s property recently and pack attacked their dog.

The Kaihu local says it was “really quite frightening” living near the animals.

Mihiata Te Rore, 62, was visiting a person she knew at a property in the small Northland town of Kaihu when she was attacked and killed on Tuesday.

Police say the three dogs involved lived at the property.

Te Rore is the third person to be killed by dogs in Northland in the past four years, sparking calls for more to be done by local and central government to deal with the growing problem.

Police have been at the taped-off home where Te Rore died on Tuesday.

A local – who RNZ has agreed not to name – said authorities were warned in the past year about issues with the dogs.

He has had his own experience with the four dogs he says live at the property.

“They’ve actually come onto my property and attacked my dog,” he said.

“They pack attacked him, all four have pack attacked my dog, and that was just over six months ago.”

Like many in the community, he was frightened.

“It is quite stressful because you don’t even know if you’re going to get attacked and for me, I’ve got to go out my drive to get to my letterbox, and you don’t know whether the dogs are around the corner,” the man said.

“It’s really quite frightening.”

‘Nothing had been done’

The man said Tuesday’s attack should never have happened.

“There were so many warnings before that happened and nothing had been done,” he said.

“I can’t believe that people are ringing dog control and yet nothing had been done.”

Statistics from the Kaipara District Council showed the number of dogs impounded by the council more than doubled over the four years from 2021 to 2025.

In the period from July 2022 to July 2025, there were 174 call-outs for dog attacks, but only one person was prosecuted in the same period.

RNZ asked the council to comment on these figures, but have not received a response.

The Kaipara District Council promoted cycle trails in the Kaihu area where Te Rore was killed.

Three years ago, Mike Wespel-Rose was biking on a track from Dargaville to Russell with his wife, when the pair were chased by dogs from a nearby property north of Whangārei.

“They were chasing us, and chasing us, it went on for quite a few minutes.”

“They jumped up on my wife’s bike […] we didn’t dare stop because God knows what we might’ve faced, so we just rode like crazy, very fearful about what might happen,” he said.

Wespel-Rose said the dog issue in the north is a symptom of wider problems with crime and poverty.

“It needs more resourcing doesn’t it, so that it can be dealt with more fully,” he said.

“It’s a tough one.”

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon described Te Rore’s death as unacceptable, and said the council needed to act.

“I would expect that within seven days that the Kiapara District Council is taking action and going after the dogs, and packs of dogs that are out there,” he said.

“Just imagine being a mum with a young baby, or young toddlers, and the anxiety that that causes.”

Push to reform laws ignored

However, Auckland Council’s Animal Management said its push for the government to reform dog control laws over the past year had fallen on deaf ears.

Elly Waitoa from the council’s animal management department said she was shocked that as recently as Tuesday morning, the government had told them they were not considering changes to the dog control act.

Meanwhile, police have said they want to hear from anyone in the Kaihu community who has had issues with dogs roaming in the area.

Detective Senior Sergeant Shane Pilmer said the dogs involved were now with Animal Management.

“This was a very upsetting and tragic event in which a woman has suffered unsurvivable injuries,” he said.

“I know the community will have a lot of questions; our investigation is still in the early stages and our focus is on establishing all the facts in this case.”

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Plans are underway to deliver food and increasingly urgent medical supplies to more than 100 people trapped near Ngawi on Wairarapa’s southern coastline.

Two bridges are out of action on the only roads into several rural and coastal communities – completely cutting them off – following torrential that hit overnight on Sunday.

Trucks are currently dumping boulders and metal into a 3-4m hole that opened on Tuesday at the Turanganui River bridge on Lake Ferry Road.

RNZ understands the goal is to reopen the road by Wednesday evening, restoring access to communities in Lake Ferry and Whangaimoana.

But a second bridge on Cape Palliser Road at the Hurupi Stream has since triggered an urgent warning from authorities.

The bridge, known as the Banana Bridge, has been scoured out at the road edge and has been deemed structurally unsafe by the South Wairarapa District Council.

“The bridge must not be used under any circumstances until it has been inspected and formally cleared by a qualified engineer,” it said.

A civil engineer was due to assess the bridge on Wednesday morning and as yet there was no timeframe for a fix.

A council spokesperson said 119 people were trapped to the east of the bridge along the coastline to Ngawi.

Local Gavin Fenwick said the Hurupi bridge failure had caught people out, with holidaymakers and tourists among those who were stuck.

He said some people were getting quite desperate for food and medical supplies and he and his wife Donna had been helping organise a supply drop into the area, which was expected later on Wednesday.

Fenwick said with medications that needed to be taken, the need for a delivery was getting “quite urgent”.

In an update on Wednesday morning, Powerco said 315 properties across Wairarapa were still without power following the storm.

Fenwick said fortunately contractors got over the bridge before it failed, restoring power by Monday night and while locals were quite “upbeat,” it was a different story for the tourists.

“It’s the campers that are here that have … just done a day trip and now they’re stuck here. Pretty hard for them.

“There’s not a lot of them, luckily, most of them got out in time, but there are a couple hanging around still. One of them put in an order for a food drop this afternoon, because they had basically nothing by the sound of it.”

The Fenwicks were also behind the well-known ‘Ngawi Big 3’ fishing competition due to be held this weekend, but Gavin Fenwick said the uncertainty around the bridge meant it had to be postponed.

In a post on social media the Ngawi Sports Fishing Club said given the state of the road, the postponement shouldn’t come as a surprise.

“The new proposed dates are 13th, 14th & 15th March – subject to the road being safe and accessible.

“We know everyone is itching to get back out there, but right now safety comes first. With our coast currently isolated, we’re focused on supporting our local community first and appreciate your understanding.”

Fenwick said the competition had been running since about 1992 and a few years ago had more than 500 entries – injecting quite a bit of cash into the local economy, but he said the call had to be made.

“People plan this months in advance and they can’t just be hanging around [wondering] ‘do we leave or do we not?’ We’ve got people come over from Australia even, they’re here in Wellington waiting to come out here.”

He said he spent Tuesday putting away all the prizes.

“It’ll have to happen another day.”

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Wellington Water has stopped pumping raw sewage through a five metre pipe directly into the sea at Tarakena Bay.

The 1.8 kilometre long pipe into Cook Strait was overwhelmed during recent heavy rain, so the water company had to revert to the short pipe – but that has now not been used for 24 hours.

Wellington Water said it was trying to increase the volume of sewage that can be pumped to the long pipe, because after the plant’s massive failure two weeks ago, it can only cope in dry weather.

“We are working this week to construct a much larger air vent on the outfall pipe to help improve the flow of water through the pipe,” it said.

“We are continuing to look for other options to increase the flow through the long outfall pipe, remembering that screening remains the only treatment function in operation.”

The plant can pump between 1300 to 1500 litres per second through the long pipe, which Wellington Water said was “more than enough” for average dry weather flows (700-900 litres per second).

Anything above those limits had to be diverted to the short pipe, it said.

Wellington Water was also dealing with a bad smell at the plant.

“Odour monitors are being installed to measure the impact at sites surrounding the plant,” it said.

“We have one unit available and will confirm when this is in place.”

Water sampling did not take place on Monday due to the bad weather, so there were no results to report on Wednesday.

Tuesday’s results will be available on Thursday.

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Petone railway underpass on a nearly-new $70 million cycleway is thigh-deep in water more than two days after the storm and heavy rain in Wellington.

Surprised cyclists on Wednesday morning entered the 30m-long tunnel under the main Hutt Valley rail line with just their tyres underwater, but ended up with it most of the way up their bike frames – and very wet legs and shoes.

“Holy crap,” said one, “it’s quite deep.”

Another, commuter Alan, who went through on his electric bike, submerging the motor and part of the battery, told RNZ he hoped it would not be ruined.

Alan said he had no idea the tunnel was flooded – there were no warning signs either on Wednesday or Tuesday at the well-used underpass, though the water could be spotted from above.

“I was like OK, sweet, I’ll be fine then … I was like holy s***, holy s***, holy s***,” said Alan, laughing.

He then sobered a little. “I hope that didn’t damage my motor,” he said, “I hope it’s going to be fine.”

His jeans were still dry – he’d put his legs up on the bike’s top bar and the motor carried him through.

The cycleway’s two rail underpasses were a particularly expensive part of the 3km path that blew out its budget by almost three times. It will be linked up later this year with the $300m-plus harbour cycleway-cum-seawall through to Ngauranga.

The northern underpass, near Normandale bridge, was dry on Wednesday.

At the Petone underpass, a cyclist heading north got off and turned around.

“It’s brand new,” he said. He had been through the water on Tuesday but expected by Wednesday it would be dry.

“Probably should do a better job than that but I’m sure there’s plenty of people got a lot worse than this.”

Also on Wednesday, political parties were arguing over the latest plan to fix the country’s failing or missing infrastructure, which contained a damning assessment of the shortfall – and recommended less-than-forecast spending on transport.

The Transport Agency Waka Kotahi fronted the Petone-to-Normandale cycleway build with a little bit of local funding from about 2019-2023.

But it said maintenance was the responsibility of Hutt City Council.

“They are better placed to comment on frequency of flooding there.”

However, the city council told RNZ to ask Wellington Water about the drainage issues.

Wellington Water is in a crisis over Moa Point’s massive infrastructure failure.

“This was a significant weather event, affecting infrastructure across the city and in areas where we have not seen impacts before,” the council said in a brief statement on Wednesday afternoon.

“There is a big clean up happening given the storm damage.

“Council and contractors are focused on prioritising public safety and critical infrastructure.”

At the underpass, a biker who had made it through the water from the south, heading north, told another heading the other way into the city: “I wouldn’t put your bike through it.”

“Thanks,” came the reply, “we’ve gone this far. We might as well finish it off.”

The second woman cyclist was, like most of the other riders, pretty chill about it.

“I wasn’t expecting this, that’s for sure,” she said, “but you know, it’s a hot day, so it’s quite refreshing.”

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Thousands of users worldwide are experiencing an outage on YouTube’s website with a “something went wrong” sign coming up on its homepage.

It appears that embedded YouTube clips are still playing, however the YouTube website is inaccessible.

There had been more than 200,000 reports of problems on the website, according to the unofficial, crowd-sourced site, Downdetector, Yahoo Finance UK reported.

More to come ….

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand