A Coromandel family is on a mission to re-unite someone with their loved ones after a sealed box of what appears to be cremated ashes washed up on the beach after Cyclone Gabrielle.

The Tee family made the unusual discovery on Buffalo Beach, Whitianga.

They'd headed to the beach to clear debris left from the storm which pummelled Whitanga on February 13 and 14, when they made the discovery.

It was a heavy white box with a full bag of ashes inside, still intact.

'We thought it was a tackle box at first. Only when we opened it and found the ashes, we thought it must be a type of urn,” says Mrs Tee, asked to be identified by her surname only.

The box may have been inside one of the beach front houses that were flooded, or even washed up from a garden, she believes.

'We are sure they are human ashes because of the size of the bag and the box, and a Google search had similar boxes for human remains.”

Seeking advice from undertaker Adrian Catran, owner of Twentymans Funeral Services in Thames, they were able to verify that the ‘bung' or plug of the box had not been removed, or unsealed, indicating that the ashes had not been scattered.

'That is on the bottom of the urn, so people can scatter ashes in a place of their choosing, and also reseal the urn should they wish to keep some of the ashes to intern,” says Adrian.

An intact box of ashes is 'a mystery”.

'I've never heard of someone throwing an urn into the water without emptying it first, or part emptying it. So it's strange. But it's possible that flooding waters unearthed them from the special place – whether it was in someone's home on display or interned somewhere.”

The force of a cyclone can unearth items not buried deeply.

Residents at Simpsons beach in the Coromandel found that Cylclone Gabrielle had unearthed a sperm whale previously buried on the Coromandel coast.

It 'saddens” him to think of someone losing their family member's ashes in this way, he says.

Urns will normally have identification on them inside, Adrian says, on the urn itself and on the bag, but the white box did not hold any such clue as to who the person might be.

The Tee family hope to find the person's family.

'The find made me think of when my father died, how upset I'd be if I'd lost his ashes. We are holding it at the moment hoping we can find who this belongs to.”

If you can help reunite the urn with those it belongs with, contact annemarie.quill@stuff.co.nz

-Annemarie Quill/Stuff.