Several people, including children, are missing after a landslide at a holiday park in New Zealand due to unprecedented rainfall.
At around 9.30am local time (7.30am AEDT) on Thursday morning, land above the Mount Maunganui Beachside Holiday Park gave way, crushing campers and a shower-toilet block.
“While the country is still moving there, they are on a rescue mission,” a police official at the scene told reporters.
“I cannot base myself on figures. What I can say is that these are individual figures.”
Emergency Situations Minister Mark Mitchell described the event as a “tragedy” and told reporters that “parents and the spouse of some of the people we are currently trying to rescue” were at the campsite.
The landslide followed Tauranga’s heaviest day of rain on record, with 270mm falling in the 24 hours to 9am.
Mitchell confirmed two bodies had been recovered from a separate landslide at Welcome Bay, near Tauranga, on Thursday afternoon. Another couple in Welcome Bay were rescued after a landslide hit their home, seriously injuring one.
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the government is “doing everything we can to support those affected” by dangerous weather in several regions.
“We stand with these local communities in the response – and we will support them in the recovery too,” he wrote on X.
Emergency workers and bystanders investigate the scene after a landslide hit a campsite on Mount Maunganui in New Zealand. Source: MONKEY / Things/AP
Alister Hardy, a fisherman who was nearby, told the NZ Herald he heard “rolling thunder and cracking trees” before looking up and seeing “the whole hill gave way”.
“There were people running and screaming and I saw people being bowled. There are people trapped,” he said.
Hiker Mark Tangney saw people fleeing the camp and ran to help, the NZ Herald reported.
“I was one of the first ones there. There were six or eight other guys on the roof of the toilet block with tools trying to take the roof off because we could hear people screaming, ‘Help us, help us, get us out of here,'” Tangney said.
Later, the voices stopped, he said.
Fire and Emergency New Zealand spokesman William Pike said the first people on the scene heard calls for help coming from the landslide.
“Our first fire crew arrived and could have heard the same thing.”
Search and rescue experts called for a withdrawal from the slip given the treacherous conditions.
Rare weather warnings
Mount Maunganui is a tourist hotspot and home to one of New Zealand’s most popular beaches and beloved hiking trails.
The heavy rainfall extended beyond the Bay of Plenty, with large parts of New Zealand’s North Island drenched on Wednesday and overnight into Thursday.
MetService has issued a rare red weather warning for a “threat to life” in several regions.
In Northland and Tairāwhiti, towns including Ōakura have suffered massive flooding, cutting off some communities.
There are also fears for a man in his 40s who was swept away in his car in the swollen Mahurangi River, north of Auckland, on Wednesday while a passenger managed to jump to safety.
MetService’s red weather warnings are reserved for only the most worrying events.
People trapped on rooftops in Tairāwhiti, where Mark Law, the helicopter pilot involved in rescue efforts, followed the deadly 2019 Whakaari volcanic eruption – helps again.
Photos of the region on social media show massive flooding, leaving forestry in the rubble.
Thousands of people – in Northland, Coromandel, Bay of Plenty and Tairāwhiti – were also without power due to the storm and flooding.
This week’s alert is the first rain-related red alert to hit the same area since Cyclone Gabrielle in early 2023, which killed 11 people and caused $7.7 billion in damage.
Two search and rescue experts were among those killed as they searched a property on Auckland’s west coast.
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