Missing West Coast toddler 'darling little girl'

Missing West Coast toddler 'darling little girl'

The body of 66-year-old man Barry Petrie has been recovered from a West Coast river, but the search for two-year-old Emily Saunders still goes on.

Mr Petrie and Emily went missing on Thursday when the vehicle they were in was trying to cross Poerua River in Hari hari, south of Hokitika, at midday. They were part of a group of five but only three made it to safety.

Mr Petrie was doing some possum trapping on one side of the river and Emily, along with her parents, were in a 4WD vehicle going to pick him up. On their way back the group became stuck and got into trouble when the river swelled after heavy rainfall.

Anne Simpson and her husband Frank employ Emily's parents Michael and Sandra Saunders. She says the little girl had just started calling her "Nana Anne".

"She was a darling little two-and-a-half-year-old," she says.

Emily is the youngest in the family and they will miss her, Ms Simpson says; the family feels "terrible".

The community are rallying around the Saunders and providing support.

Ms Simpson also described Mr Petrie as a "gentleman". He wasn't related to Emily.

Search and rescue crews at Poerua River (Dean Trolle)

The NZCC Rescue Helicopter and Land Search and Rescue (LandSAR) white water rescue team were searching the river on Friday morning. LandSAR volunteers were also scouring riverbanks and beaches.

At approximately 2pm, one of the search and rescue teams found and recovered Mr Petrie's body on a beach that's five kilometres downstream of the river. The family of Mr Petrie are devastated. 

Crews continued to look for the toddler for the rest of the day, but have since wound down the search before they will suspend it for the night.

The river is still rising and swells from the sea have hampered search efforts on both Thursday and Friday.

"The weather is due to pack-up again... there's more heavy rain forecast," Sergeant Paul Watson says.

"We will assess the situation... as to where we can further concentrate our search efforts."

The MetService says the rain should be easing overnight but another front is moving towards the West Coast, which means heavy rain is expected on Saturday afternoon with possible thunderstorms.

In the past 24 hours Hokitika has had nearly 32 millimetres of rain.

Newshub.