Six people, including two teenagers, are missing after a landslide ripped through a holiday campsite on the east coast of New Zealand on Thursday morning.
Families were enjoying the summer school holidays at Beachside Holiday Park in Mount Maunganui in Tauranga, when a massive landslide struck as heavy rain has battered parts of the North Island for days.
Mount Maunganui is one of the most important landmarks in the Bay of Plenty region. Hundreds of thousands of tourists visit it every month and it is popular with both international visitors and holidaying Kiwis.
The landslide-struck campsite sits at the base of Mount Maunganui, also known as Mauao, an extinct volcano that’s both a popular tourist destination and a sacred Māori site.
Police on Friday confirmed two teenagers, the youngest being a 15-year-old, were among those unaccounted for.
Prime minister Christopher Luxon arrived in Tauranga on Friday afternoon and described the scene as an “absolute tragedy”, as he met with the families of those impacted.
“They are grieving incredibly hard, and I know that New Zealand grieves with them. It’s a highly anxious time.
“All we can do is make sure that we’re offering the very best support to those families, and I feel very confident that we are.”
“We have 25 personnel working alongside contractors, using diggers and police dogs, as well as police operations, to ensure that every inch of soil removed is thoroughly examined,” said David Guard, a fire and emergency official.
However, the scale of the disaster and the risks at the site could delay rescue efforts, New Zealand police commissioner, Richard Chambers, told the New Zealand Herald.
“It could be days. We appreciate that everybody is anxious and waiting for their loved ones, and for some answers, but we also have to be very careful,” Mr Chambers said.
Three other foreign tourists who had not checked out and were on a list of campers are also considered unaccounted for.
“We don’t believe they’re here, but we still got to do that inquiry,” police district commander Tim Anderson said.
Mr Anderson said they have not found any signs of life under the rubble, “but we live in hope” and we were still “working 24/7” and “leaving no stone unturned”.
