WELLINGTON, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand Police on Wednesday confirmed they had found the first remains of a young Canadian tourist whose vehicle was swept off a road by a landslide three years ago.
Canadian couple Connor Hayes, 25, and Joanna Lam, 24, died in September 2013 when a large slip swept their campervan off a road near Haast Pass, on the west of the South Island.
Lam's body was located after an extensive search, but Hayes' body was never found.
But in August, a hunter located a human thigh bone at the confluence of the Haast and Burke Rivers and DNA analysis confirmed it came from Hayes, Inspector Mel Aitken said in a statement.
On Sunday, another search was carried out on the Haast River and searchers recovered a number of items of interest from the riverbed, but police were yet to confirm whether they belonged to Hayes.
Anything, including bones, which was believed to belong to Hayes, would be returned to his family in Canada, said Aitken.
