Pair swept off Muriwai rocks
Daughter says dad of nine slipped as he hauled in a fish and mother tried to help
AHenderson couple swept to their deaths at Muriwai have left nine grieving children and a grandchild. Refugees from Burma Kay Dah Ukay, 48, and his wife Mu Thu Pa, 50, were fishing on the rocks yesterday with their three youngest children aged 13, 9 and 7.
An older daughter, Dah Htoo Ukay, 25, said her father slipped on the wet rocks as he tried to haul in a fish.
“When they went fishing they got a big fish and tried to take it out,” she said.
“He was slipping on the rock and fell in the water. My mother also tried to hold the rod. My younger sister tried to grab my mother, but she [the mother] fell in the water too.”
Jay Ukay, 9, said the three siblings called for help. “There was this old man standing on the deck [behind the rocks]. He called 111.”
Jay said both an ambulance and a helicopter arrived quickly. Police found their mother’s body first.
“They said she was still breathing a little bit but after half an hour she was gone, but my father, he was already passed away,” he said.
Dah Htoo Ukay said it took police about 40 minutes to find him.
The couple were taken to Auckland City Hospital where the children were able to see their bodies.
“There was rock everywhere on my father’s face and my mother’s face. The blood was still running,” Dah Htoo Ukay said.
She said her parents and their older children had to flee from the Burmese army to reach safety in Thailand 20 years ago.
They lived in a refugee camp on the Thai/Burmese border for 10 years before being resettled in New Zealand in January 2008.
Both parents were still learning English with Waitakere Adult Literacy, but the older children now work.
Dah Htoo Ukay works in the Tegel chicken factory and two brothers work for The Warehouse. One brother is married with a 3-year-old son. Seven children still live at the Henderson house where the family has lived since they arrived in New Zealand. The older ones will now have to look after the four still at school — one at Waitakere College, one at Henderson Intermediate and two at Henderson North Primary.
“We are going to have to look after each other,” Dah Htoo Ukay said.
The family are from Burma’s minority Karen community and most worship at a Burmese Buddhist temple in New Lynn.
The community will gather at Muriwai at 7.30am today “to bless the place”, then monks from the temple will lead prayers at the family home. Funeral plans have not been decided.