{"id":76419,"date":"2026-02-19T12:42:57","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T03:42:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/19\/wellington-raw-sewage-leak-spill-water-new-zealand"},"modified":"2026-02-19T12:42:57","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T03:42:57","slug":"its-a-catastrophe-wellington-rages-as-millions-of-litres-of-raw-sewage-pours-into-ocean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76419","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s a catastrophe\u2019: Wellington rages as millions of litres of raw sewage pours into ocean"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Abandoned beaches, public health warning signs and seagulls eating human waste are now features of the popular coastline in New Zealand<\/p>\n<p>A tide of anger is rising in New Zealand\u2019s capital, Wellington, as the city\u2019s toilets continue to flush directly into the ocean more than two weeks after the catastrophic collapse of its wastewater treatment plant.<\/p>\n<p>Millions of litres of raw and partially screened sewage have been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/06\/wellington-sewage-leak-sea-new-zealand\">pouring into pristine reefs and a marine reserve<\/a> along the south coast daily since 4 February, prompting a national inquiry, as authorities struggle to get the decimated plant operational.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/19\/wellington-raw-sewage-leak-spill-water-new-zealand\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Abandoned beaches, public health warning signs and seagulls eating human waste are now features of the popular coastline in New ZealandA tide of anger is rising in New Zealand\u2019s capital, Wellington, as the city\u2019s toilets continue to flush directly into&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4054,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,65,56,827],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-environment","category-new-zealand","category-water"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4054"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76419"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76429,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76419\/revisions\/76429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}