21 Jun 2021

Family mourning, clean up begins after weekend tornado

From First Up, 5:45 am on 21 June 2021

An Auckland family is mourning the loss of their father and husband after he was killed in the devastating tornado that hit south Auckland on Saturday morning. Janesh Prasad was working at the South Auckland Freight Hub in Wiri when the violent tornado touched down, picking up shipping containers and scattering them as if they were match boxes. A huge cleanup job is also underway in Papatoetoe, about 2 kilometres to the north, where the tornado tore roofs off houses, toppled trees onto cars, and sent debris flying hundreds of metres. About 60 homes were left uninhabitable. Our producer Matthew Theunissen followed the twister's path of destruction down Freyburg Avenue and filed this report.