Landslides in New Zealand’s North Island kill at least two, with multiple people missing after mud buries a home and a popular tourist campsite.
MOUNT MAUNGANUI: Landslides ploughed into a home and a campsite in rain-swept northern New Zealand, killing at least two people and leaving others missing.
Rescuers used heavy machinery to dig through tonnes of mud after heavy overnight rain on the North Island.
Emergency workers retrieved two bodies from the remains of a buried home in the harbourside city of Tauranga, police said.
Multiple people were missing after a chunk of earth from Mount Maunganui slid into a popular campsite nearby.
The mud smashed into a shower block, threw around camper vans, and spread into an adjoining heated pool complex.
Voices were briefly heard calling for help from beneath the rubble, witnesses and emergency officials said.
Assistant Police Commissioner Tim Anderson said rescuers were in a “rescue mission” while the land was still moving.
He confirmed the number of missing was in “single figures”, with a young girl among them.
Visiting Canadian tourist Dion Siluch said he was having a massage at the now-evacuated Mount Hot Pools when the landslide hit.
“The whole room started shaking,” he told AFP.
“When I walked out, there was a caravan in the pool, and there’s a mudslide that missed me by about 30 feet.”
People at the campsite had instantly tried to dig into the rubble and heard voices, Fire and Emergency commander William Pike said.
Rescuers soon withdrew everyone from the site because of the risk of further dangerous earth movements.
Hiker Mark Tangney saw people fleeing the camp and ran to help, the New Zealand Herald reported.
“I could just hear people screaming, so I just parked up and ran to help,” he told the paper.
He described people on the roof of a toilet block trying to take it off because they could hear screams for help.
Later, the voices stopped, he said.
