Raw sewage, including faecal matter and sanitary products, flowed down the main street of a Wellington suburb after a blocked wastewater main caused an overflow in heavy rain overnight.
Footage provided to 1News showed tampons, toilet paper and sewage washing down Island Bay's main thoroughfare during the night as water backed up through drains.
Residents were furious at what they said was a long-running failure of the capital's ageing infrastructure.
Island Bay business owner Fran De Gregorio said she had zero faith in the system and the council was putting the "cart before the horse" in terms of infrastructure.
"All you've done is put this beautiful stuff on top of s*** — and now we're actually getting the s*** literally," she told 1News.
"Why do we pay rates? This is basic infrastructure. This is just a basic need."
Manhole covers had been blown off by the pressure surging through the pipes, she said.
"Out of that is coming raw sewage. It's a major health issue. You've got kids walking to school."
She said she had been bounced between Wellington City Council, Wellington Water and roading contractor Higgins trying to get longstanding leaks fixed.
"I'm sick of being fobbed off from entity to entity. I just want it fixed. We're just paying a whole lot of people to talk about stuff, investigate stuff, and we're farming it off to another company or another entity."
Wellington City Council said it would look at its records to see whether there was any problem with how reports of flooding were dealt with.
Residents describe raw sewage, tampons and toilet paper washing down the main street during overnight flooding. (Source: Supplied)
Another resident Emerson Nikura (Ngāti Maniapoto, Te Atiawa), who was displaced from his Island Bay home in April's floods, told 1News the community was heading into winter with no confidence the system could handle heavy rain.
"Enough is enough. Every time a bit more rain turns up, we're all feeling very anxious and frightened," he said.
"You look at what's in the water — not happy at all. And in regards to E. coli and stuff like that, that could get the children sick."
He said a community meeting on flooding had been scheduled for Saturday and he expected the overnight incident to dominate the discussion.
"People are going to be very angry about why this is happening again."
Nikura said Māori had long understood the importance of protecting waterways and that indigenous knowledge was often dismissed.
"Māori have always known about this. We're still fighting with individuals where it's continually shut down — 'you don't know anything about this, it's not your domain,'" he said.
"We want to work together — all peoples from the community, including Māori — to get this fixed."
Wellington Water confirmed a suction truck had cleared the blockage, with wastewater resuming normal flow through the network. It said fve properties were affected by overflowing gully traps, with crews assisting owners with cleaning and disinfecting.
The overnight spill was not an isolated incident. Due to heavy rain, a short outfall pipe at Moa Point is also discharging untreated wastewater into Tarakena Bay, Wellington Water said.
"It is likely to be travelling around the coastline," the utility said.
MetService said thunderstorm activity in southern parts of Wellington had dropped up to 25mm of rain in an hour, which it said could have caused flash flooding.
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