00:00Tributes for a business owner and mother from a tight-knit Sydney community.
00:07Everybody knows her in Brow, so she's a part of the fabric of the place.
00:13And yeah, we've been mates for a while and good friends with our husband as well, so yeah, tragedy.
00:20Melissa Austin's hairdressing salon in Sydney's north is closed until further notice.
00:25She drowned while on holiday at Dunbogan Beach in dangerous swells on New Year's Day after bystanders tried to save her.
00:35A young man stopped me. He was really panicked and nervous. He said one of the ladies, she was drowning.
00:43Locals who saw the tragedy unfold have returned today in calmer conditions.
00:48This beach has been unpatrolled for the last 30, 40 years.
00:51It has a really strong undertow, so in a big ground swirl like we have here.
00:56You've got to be really, really careful.
00:58We hear she was a mother of two kids and I have two kids as well, so tragic really.
01:03In Sydney's east, police divers spent the day searching off Kooji Beach for a missing 23-year-old Nepalese national.
01:11Lifesavers joined the search from the air and in choppy seas, using green dye to track the ribs.
01:18A hazardous surf warning has been cancelled, but several New South Wales beaches remain closed in dangerous conditions.
01:26Lifesavers are pleading with the public to obey the signs.
01:30All the drownings have occurred in really hazardous surf conditions, so the beaches were closed in the majority of those instances and all at unpatrolled locations.
01:40At Palm Beach, a second ocean search has been scaled back after a boat capsized on New Year's Eve.
01:48One man on board died and another was saved.
01:51Hopes are now fading for the 14-year-old boy, still missing.
01:55Hopes are now fading for the 14-year-old boy, still missing.
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