School hiking trip ends in tragedy
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Six teenagers and a teacher were swept to their deaths when a high school hiking group was caught in a flash flood at a wilderness gorge in New Zealand. Five other students were plucked to safety from the Mangatepopo River torrent in Tongariro National Park.
School principal Murray Burton said the deaths were a “tragedy which defies belief.” Prime Minister Helen Clark expressed “profound sympathy and shock.”
Officials said there was no apparent warning to the group when the river rose to about four times its normal water level in the narrow gorge within half an hour. The teenagers attended Elim Christian High School in Auckland.
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