Mount Maunganui landslide victim formally identified as Max Furse-Kee

Max Furse-Kee would have turned 16 today. Photo: Supplied

One of the victims of the deadly Mount Maunganui landslide has been formally identified as Max Furse-Kee, on what would have been his 16th birthday.

Six people died in the Mauao slip last Thursday.

At an identification hearing at Tauranga District Court on Wednesday evening, deputy chief coroner Brigitte Windley formally identified Max Furse-Kee after hearing evidence provided by Senior Constable Robert Stokes.

Stokes told the court his body was found on Monday, and detailed the forensic dental examination which determined his identity.

Furse-Kee’s body will now be released to his family.

“Sadly, today he would have turned 16,” she said.

Windley told the court the evidence provided to her was the culmination of specialist work by police, forensic pathologists, forensic odontologists, and other experts.

She acknowledged the dedication and skill of those working at the scene.

Windley noted that in disasters, victims can be misidentified – and it has happened overseas – but she is confident that the evidence provided was sufficient and reliable to establish Furse-Kee’s identity.

She expressed condolences to Furse-Kee’s whānau and friends for their loss in “unimaginable circumstances”.

The victims of the landslide have been named as Lisa Anne Maclennan, 50, Måns Loke Bernhardsson, 20, Jacqualine Suzanne Wheeler, 71, Susan Doreen Knowles, 71, Sharon Maccanico, 15, and Max Furse-Kee, 15.

Only Furse-Kee has been formally identified.

His mother, Hannah Furse, released a statement paying tribute to her son on Sunday.

“My love for Max is impossible to explain, no words are big enough to describe this love or loss,” she said.

“What I can say is from the moment I first looked at his beautiful blue eyes almost 16 years ago he had my whole heart, he was my sunshine.”

Her son was an “incredible, kind, and beautiful human being”, she said.

She said her son was “incredibly close” to his family and life without him was “impossible to imagine”.

The recovery operation at the site of the slip is ongoing.