A British adventure tourist was one of two men killed in a freak storm while kayaking on a New Zealand lake, police said.
James Robert Murphy, 20, from London, was with 11 kayakers who paddled into bad weather after heading out on to Lake Tekapo on Friday afternoon. Daniel Thomas Hollnsteiner, 21, of New York, also died.
Nine survivors were treated for hypothermia after spending up to an hour in the freezing waters, with some swimming to a nearby island before being rescued.
Police inspector Dave Gaskin said: “Lake Tekapo’s an extremely dangerous lake, it’s extremely savage. It’s very, very cold, the winds get up very quickly.”
“It appears their boats got swamped and they were tipped out ... they’ve just got caught out by a freak wind, unfortunately here we do get freak winds too regularly.”
The deceased were students at Australia’s Monash University who were in New Zealand’s South Island on a semester break. It was not yet known how many of the others were studying at the Melbourne institution.
The university said in a statement: “Our university community is deeply saddened by the news of the tragic deaths of two of our students in a kayaking accident on the South Island of New Zealand.
“Monash has sent a senior member of our management team to New Zealand to support the other students there at this difficult time.”
Three members of the group received hospital treatment overnight Friday but police said they were expected to be discharged within hours.
Police said investigations into the cause of the tragedy would continue over the weekend and the matter would be referred to the coroner.
A UK Foreign Office spokesman said: “We can confirm the death of a British national in New Zealand. We are providing support to the family and are in contact with the New Zealand authorities.”
A local resident, who did not want to be named, told the New Zealand Herald there had been a very strong wind on the lake on Friday afternoon although the newspaper said no official weather warnings had been in place at the time.
Press Association and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report