Senior Sergeant Richard Miller, Eastern Bay of Plenty Police:

Police have today located the body of a person who died following a single vehicle crash into Waioeka River, Ōpōtiki on Friday.

Emergency Services responded to the scene around 10:20am on 4 October after we were alerted that a vehicle had gone down a bank into the river, around 2.5km south of the Tauranga Bridge, State Highway 2.

Search and rescue teams, including a boat, helicopter and Coastguard jet skis conducted sweeps of the river and riverbank on Friday. Unfortunately, the person and vehicle were unable to be located.

Since that time Police and rescue teams have been on standby ready to respond once the river conditions were right to safely deploy a team to the area.

Today, the river conditions had cleared sufficiently and Police along with search and rescue teams, local jet boat operators, and the Police National Dive Squad responded, searching the river. The vehicle was located at about 12:05pm, around 400 metres from the original crash site.

The victim was located deceased inside the vehicle and has since been successfully recovered.

While located deceased, police are pleased to have been able to reunite whānau with their loved one.

Enquiries into the circumstances of the crash are ongoing.

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