Auckland student Rachael Louise De Jong, 21, (inset) drowned after the Aratiatia Dam floodgates were opened, sending water surging down the river where she was swimming with friends. Two German tourists, Katrin Taylor and Kevin Kiau, were on a viewing platform in the Aratiatia Dam area when they heard the warning siren for the opening floodgates and watched in horror as the water surged towards four people standing on a submerged rock (main). Ms De Jong was swept away, her body was recovered from a rockpool by police on Monday night. Devastated friends and family say Ms De Jong was a smiling, bubbly woman and loved by many.

Linda Trevan (Pictured right and left with daughter Cassidy) has been flooded with support after speaking out about her teenage daughter who was relentlessly bullied and then gang raped by two older boys before committing suicide two years later. Cassidy Trevan was the target of severe bulling by a group of girls at her Melbourne high school and raped by two teenage boys after being led to a house in Springvale in February 2014. The event caused Cassidy to suffer 'nightmares, insomnia, separation anxiety, panic attacks, PTSD and subsequent worsening mental illness,' her mother Linda Trevan said. After two years of suffering, Cassidy committed suicide aged 15. 'I wish she could have seen this beautiful caring supportive side of humanity instead of experiencing all the abuse that was inflicted upon her for no reason other than jealousy,' Ms Trevan posted about the support online.

NEW Rape survivor, Thordis Elva (left), from Iceland, was just 16 when she was raped by her then-boyfriend, Tom Stranger (right), 18, a foreign exchange student from Australia. The pair have joined forces 20 years on and released a TED talk (inset) about the assault. In the talk, the pair discuss the impact the rape had on both of their lives.

Police investigating the horrific murder of a tradesman with a sword-like weapon have launched a manhunt for the victim's brother. Jonathan Dick, 39 (centre and inset), has been urged to hand himself in after his brother, David, 36 (left) had his throat slashed in a lift on Friday morning at Westfield Doncaster, in Melbourne's east. The Dick family - including the siblings' distraught mother (top right) - watched the CCTV yesterday but didn't believe Jonathan was the man in the footage. Police now believe he may be driving out of Victoria, possibly towards New South Wales or Queensland. Jonathan, from Seymour, Victoria, is thought to be in a blue 1997 Ford Fairmont sedan or a white 2002 Ford Falcon station wagon. The appeal comes after detectives released security footage of a suspect walking with a large yellow bag at the scene of the crime just a day before the attack.

NEW She just captained the Adelaide Crows to their first game - and first victory - in Women's AFL.  But Erin Phillips (left of right) is just as focused on her latest prize - her two infant twins Brooklyn Rayne and Blake Cruz (inset and left) Carried by her wife Tracy Grahan (right of right) and delivered in the US in early November last year, the new family are over the moon.

David Birnie's daughter Tanya has spoken for the first time, revealing she has never risked entering into a serious relationship for fear of getting married and passing on her father's genes to potential children. David (left and right) and his lover Catherine (inset) were convicted of kidnapping, raping, and killing four women between the ages of 15 and 31 in the 1980s.

She's the whimsical Married At First Sight bride who has baffled viewers with her bizarre outbursts (left) and particular tastes in men. But Debbie, 53, was also a face painter called the 'Indian Fairy' (right and inset) for 17 years. Debbie became a household name at the famed Eumundi Markets on the Sunshine Coast where she would tell 'magical stories' in her forest-themed tent. She also represented the markets at a tourism event in Singapore in 2010.

Jilted Married At First Sight groom Andrew, 38, is more popular with the ladies than ever before. The Married At First Sight Twitter account took to the platform on Wednesday afternoon with a mock dating show ad (inset) and revealed the jilted groom had become very popular online. But the aspiring singer is no stranger to female attention however, with photos posted to his social media accounts (left and right) offering a glimpse into the reality star's active social life. Multiple pictures taken between 2008 and 2010 show the firefighter enjoying nights out partying with his mates and at one stage, the self-confessed 'clown' was pictured unbuttoning his shirt on a bus as a woman grasped at him.

Cameron Cox, 22, (right) was on his family's farm in Mudgee, NSW, fighting a grass fire when he was struck by lightning during a storm. The young man was working alongside his mother, father, brother, sister, and grandparents battling a blaze on their property during a storm on Tuesday. Paramedics rushed to the property but the young man, who has been remembered as a much-loved member of his local cricket team, died at the scene. He is pictured left with his girlfriend Georgia Walter.

Organisers of a controversial Islamic conference in Melbourne have sparked outrage for publishing a promotional flyer with the faces of female speakers blacked out. The Australian Islamic Peace Conference has come under fire for putting out a flyer advertising speakers at their conference in March. The pamphlet featured the often smiling faces of 12 male speakers, including controversial Sheikh Shady Alsuleiman and prominent community spokesman Keysar Trad. But critics were furious the faces of three female speakers - psychologist Monique Toohey (pictured top right), social worker Nina Trad Azam (bottom right) and Islamic teacher Umm Jamaal ud-Din - had been replaced with shadowy veils. 'It's backward and inappropriate,' said a person with knowledge of the conference planning. But a spokesman for organisers the Islamic Research and Education Academy, told Daily Mail Australia they had been trying to protect the women from right-wing extremism.

A young Queensland mother who killed her seven-week-old daughter will be sentenced in April after pleading guilty to manslaughter. Michelle Catherine Leask appeared at a brief hearing at the Brisbane Supreme Court on Wednesday morning. She calmly said 'guilty, you honour,' when arraigned over the April 2012 death of her baby, Lili Cataldo. A charge of murder was withdrawn following the plea. Leask left court holding the hand of a young man and didn't comment.

Models Poppy, 30, (right) and Cara, 24, (inset, left) join their eldest sister Chloe (far left) for their first ever joint interview, in this season's PORTER magazine, describing how their mother Pandora's (bottom, inset) battle with heroin plagued them throughout their childhood, but subsequently strengthened their bond as sisters.

Australian-born royal, Crown Princess Mary (pictured) sported a bejeweled hat in Aarhus on Tuesday as she opened the 'Jewel Box' exhibition, which featured 1,000 Danish pieces. The princess also donned a matching tweet skirt and jacket combination and paired the outfit with purple gloves and pumps for a burst of colour.

Thirteen-year-old Danielle Bregoli rose to Internet fame after an iconic performance on Dr Phil where she berated an entertained audience - telling them to 'cash her ousside', propositioning a fight. It appears the young woman made good on her promise, after recently being kicked off of a Spirit Airlines flight with her mother, Barbara Ann, for punching another passenger Tuesday night at LAX. In the video obtained by TMZ, Bregoli and her mother can be heard in a screaming argument with another woman, ending in the meme sensation pummeling the woman in the face.

Xanthe King, 19, (pictured, left) worked at Dolphin Marine Magic in Coffs Harbour, NSW for three years and helped care for and train the five bottle-nose dolphins born in captivity at the park. While Ms King no longer works at the facility, Taylor McKeown (right), who is known for her passionate protests against dolphin and whale slaughter, contacted her through Instagram and told her she has 'no respect for animals'. After she received multiple comments over a few weeks last month, Ms King said she was forced to turn her Instagram account to private to escape the abuse. McKeown maintains she had 'done nothing wrong'. The dolphin park has been criticised for it's treatment of the mammals, including one that's been in the park for 47 years.

A woman who battled anorexia has started a new chapter in her life overcoming the eating disorder by illustrating a powerful book about how she beat her demons. Christie Begnell, now 24, from NSW, (pictured) developed anorexia after suffering with serious bouts of depression through her early teens.
At one point, living off a diet of just water, diet coke and energy drinks, (centre and right) Christie slashed her calorie intake to just 300 a day. Now, she has recovered (left and inset) and is helping others.

The world's most identical twins (pictured) are not shy about sharing the frivolous details of their lifestyle. But on Tuesday, Perth-based Anna and Lucy DeCinque took a more serious tone as they recounted their experience with drink spiking. The girls said they wanted their experience - which left them in hospital and 'lucky to be alive' according to one doctor - to serve as a warning to other women. 

An eight-year-old girl who broke her neck in a quad bike crash was sent home from hospital with painkillers by doctors who failed to notice her horror injuries. Ava Amato (left, in hospital, and right) was seriously injured when she came off the quad bike in Cervantes, Western Australia, last month and was driven 200km to a hospital in Perth. Ava, whose neck was kept in a head brace in the back of an ambulance, was given an x-ray at Joondalup Hospital but was astonishingly sent home with Panadol and Nurofen. The little girl's neck was broken in four places but doctors told her family that she just had 'muscle damage', her mother Nicole Amato said. It was only two days later that a consultant radiologist phoned the family and told them to return to the hospital urgently.

The youngster, named Faten, was punished by the fanatics' morality police (pictured, left) after stepping over the threshold of her home while cleaning. Members of the female al-Khansa brigade in Mosul produced the torture device (similar to the one pictured, right), and the girl, bled to death as a result of her wounds, a witness claimed.

Cooking is a difficult thing to master. One wrong press of a button or a moment of memory lapse, and everything is ruined. But now people from around the world have seen the funny side in failure, and shared photographs of their biggest cooking errors (pictured). The images are a lesson to everyone in the importance of using a tray and keeping an eye on your rolls at all times.

You may think you're the main attraction when you reach to take a selfie...but as this rib-tickling collection of images prove, a distracting background can upstage even the biggest prima donna. From X-rated acts to some terrible personal habits, here's a group of selfies that offer a little something extra.

The former husband of screen legend Judy Garland claims that the actress was molested by some of the 'munchkins' on the set of her classic film The Wizard of Oz.' Sid Luft, who died in 2005, wrote in a recently uncovered memoir that  Garland was groped by the grown men despite that fact that she was only 16 at the time. 'They thought they could get away with anything because they were so small,' wrote Luft. 'They would make Judy's life miserable on set by putting their hands under her dress. The men were 40 or more years old.'

Catherine Zeta-Jones opened her cavernous closet loaded with luxury goods to her captive, combined 1.2M social media followers on Friday. The 47-year-old Oscar winner shared a video featuring race car revving noises captioned: 'A zip through my closet! #StyleByZeta.'

More than 300,000 years ago, a massive portion of sediment on the Great Barrier Reef collapsed in an undersea landslide. The event, about 30 times the volume of Australia's sandstone monolith Uluru, left behind a debris field spanning nearly 20 miles from the main site. Scientists conducting 3D multibeam mapping of the deep seafloor have now discovered remnants of the slip, with some hill-like knolls found to stand hundreds of feet tall.

A wildlife park has captured the adorable moment one koala has snuggled up to another and used her soft, furry head as a pillow for nap time. Willow was filmed cuddling up to Imogen at Symbio Wildlife Park in Helensburgh, New South Wales. Willow was perched behind Imogen with her arms around Imogen's neck, holding onto the branch of a tree. She was then seen resting her chin on Imogen's head and snuggling in to fall asleep.

The dog, named Spirit, was found bleeding in the street, in the same spot where three murdered puppies were found in the same week. One had been cut in half, one had its skull caved in and the other had been disemboweled. Horrified animal campaigners Nicky Stevens, Amanda Keask and Anneka Svenska (pictured in Bucharest, inset) uncovered the catalogue of cruelty in the Romanian capital, and called for tougher laws to protect the thousands of strays that roam free across the country, a hangover from Romania's Communist years.

A mother tried to stab her ex-husband and disembowel him with a carving knife just minutes after they had a four-hour sex session, a court heard today. Dalya Saeed, 35, (left) is accused of stabbing Bilal Miah, 31, (right) and trying to pull out his intestines during an argument about custody of their daughter. Birmingham Crown Court was told part of Mr Miah's small bowel was cut from his body and thrown onto the bedroom carpet. The taxi driver, who had remarried, told a jury he desperately tried to push his entrails back into his stomach after being attacked by his estranged wife at her home. He suffered 30 separate wounds and spent ten days in hospital and made a full recovery after undergoing two operations. Saeed denies charges of attempted murder and wounding with intent.

A cameraman gave viewers an eyeful of Patricia Martinez's low cut golden swimming costume when she appeared on Mira Quien Salta - the Spanish version of the show Splash! which featured Olympic star Tom Daley. He cuts out her face completely and focuses in on her breasts in the shot.

Christopher Duntsch (right), 45, is charged with five counts of aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury and one count of injury to an elderly person over the allegedly failed procedures. The charges stem from incidents where he is accused of causing the death of two patients, while mutilating four others - including Jerry Summers, who woke up after undergoing spinal surgery unable to move his arms or legs. 'I don't remember feeling any pain, I just couldn't move,' Summers (bottom left) said in a video testimony played in court on Monday. The widower of another of Duntsch's alleged victims, Kellie Martin (top left), also spoke to jurors. Don Martin said he asked the surgeon if his wife was going to be OK, to which he replied she would. Martin bled out and died after the doctor cut through her spinal cord, slashing a major artery, prosecutors allege.

A 90-year-old man has become an internet sensation after he was he filmed singing a rousing rendition of a classic folk song in his local park. Danny Doran (pictured), who was originally from Liverpool in the UK but now lives in Perth, Australia, has gained international acclaim after his son Kevin shared the video last month. The father and son duo performed a cover of timeless classic Liverpool Lou, with Kevin on guitar and his father on vocals. Despite his remarkable talent, the pensioner, originally has never sung professionally.

Boris Johnson yesterday said he was 'sickened' by reports that Bashar al-Assad's regime tortured and hanged 13,000 political prisoners in four years. Amid compelling evidence that the Syrian president's henchmen carried out an unprecedented 'policy of extermination', the Foreign Secretary said the dictator had 'no future as leader'. Civilians perceived to be opposed to the brutal regime - including doctors and aid workers - were executed in mass hangings of up to 50 detainees at a time, according to a chilling Amnesty International dossier. Victims were given death sentences after sham trials lasting less than three minutes, often on the basis of confessions extracted through torture, the human rights charity said. Many thousands of others held at the notorious 20,000-capacity Saydnaya military prison, north of Damascus, died from starvation and disease.

Photographer Barrett Hedges filmed the cheeky otter sliding around a frozen river in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, USA. The playful animal was seen belly flopping into the snow and skidding along the surface. Mr Hedges published the video on Facebook, where it has been viewed more than 72,000 times.

Internet users have been challenged with finding the single one-eyed Jack concealed in this scattered deck of colourful cards. The brainteaser will prove especially tricky as the card is hidden among other Jacks, Kings and Queens of all suits. A quick glance might not reveal where the Jack is hidden, but take a closer look at the cards beneath the top layer and you might have more luck.