E coli in water

Residents in two West Coast towns have been told to boil their water after E coli was detected in their town water supplies. The Westland District Council has advised people in Whataroa and Kumara to boil their water before drinking it or using it for food preparation. The advice will be lifted when there are three successive clear test results. ‘‘In the interim, our contractors are flushing mains and disinfecting the water treatment plant,’’ a council spokeswoman said. New water treatment plants are expected to be completed by mid-2018 for the 300-plus residents of Kumara and 145 residents of Whataroa.

Fatal crashes

A person has died in a crash south of Kaikohe in Northland. Emergency services were called to the scene, 3 kilometres south of the Twin Bridges on State Highway 15, about 9am. There was no-one else in the car when it crashed, a police spokeswoman said. And a person died in a collision between a truck and a car on the Timaru-pareora Highway/state Highway 1, just south of Timaru at 2.25pm yesterday.

Deep lake foils search

Police have put the search for a United States skydiver on hold after finding Queenstown’s Lake Wakatipu to be deeper than expected. Californian man Tyler Nii, 27, and his jumpmaster crashed into the lake on January 10. The jumpmaster was found shortly afterwards. Police divers began using sonar equipment but found the lake was about 320m deep and the equipment reached only 300m. Additional equipment was scheduled to arrive yesterday.