Dive squad joins hunt for men
Hope is still on the mind of Maraea Ngoronoa, mother of the lost Palmerston North labourer Ha¯kopa Ngaronoa.
Since Saturday, Hakopa Ngoronoa, 26, and his friend Vincent Taumira, 21, have been missing in the Tongariro National Park. They ran into the bush after a police chase on the Desert Rd.
Land Search and Rescue and police have been searching for the pair in the dense scrub ever since. Members of both men’s families soon joined Ngoronoa. She said her son was much loved and she’d been overwhelmed with offers from as far as Australia to help find them.
‘‘Everyone’s wanting to pitch in... That kind of love is overwhelming and it’s hard to describe.
‘‘Family members are biting at the bit to come help every day, but we have to let Search and Rescue do their job,’’ she said.
Hakopa Ngoronoa works hard as a forklift driver in Palmerston North, Ngoronoa said.
‘‘He loves working and he loves manual work,’’ she said.
‘‘He was baling hay at the age of 16.’’
The men were last heard from on Sunday, when one briefly rang police to ask for help.
It is believed the cellphone ran out of battery.
Senior sergeant Tony Jeurissen said the search parameters were narrowed down each day as more items were found by searchers.
‘‘It’s not a huge area, but the scrub is thick, dense and uninviting,’’ he said.
‘‘Because of the weather conditions, energy levels are sapped quite quickly.’’
The search area involves both the Kaimanawa Forest Park and the Tongariro National Park. The ‘‘area of interest’’ is between the Desert Rd and the Tongariro River, near the Pillars of Hercules gorge, with Tree Trunk Gorge Rd at the southern end, he said.
On Friday, four members of the police’s national dive squad were carried by helicopter over the forest and lowered down to small streams.
Land Search and Rescue operations manager Dave Comber said divers would search the streambeds.
‘‘When we get to this stage, a lot of the search teams have not been able get into the streams themselves because there are some quite steep banks,’’ he said.
‘‘In this pumice country, a stream tends to cut its way down, so you can actually fall into it and foliage can come over the top and you can’t actually see into it from the top.
‘‘So the idea is, these guys with their wetsuits, they can actually get down to the stream itself and look into it.
‘‘That just helps us to identify there’s nothing in there and clear them out.’’
Police have been updating the families on the search at the end of each day.
Ngoronoa said her son was a ‘‘bull headed, strong minded person’’ when it came to protecting family and friends.
‘‘He has a soft side to him – a nurturing, loving side.
‘‘The friends he has – the gangs and that – they don’t know about that side of him.
‘‘He’s an awesome son: respectful to his elders, loyal to his friends, loving to his family.
‘‘I live in hope, because that’s all I’ve got left, beside love,’’ Ngoronoa said.
Jeurissen said police would continue to liaise with the family of the missing men.