Rescue teams dig through mud for six missing campers after a landslide from Mount Maunganui hit a New Zealand campsite following heavy rain.
MOUNT MAUNGANUI: Rescue teams worked through the night digging into deep mud for at least six missing people after a landslide from an extinct volcano hit a popular campsite.
A large chunk of Mount Maunganui crashed into the holiday park on Thursday, smashing a shower block, camper vans and caravans following heavy rain.
Police said a 15-year-old was the youngest person unaccounted for after the disaster.
Voices were heard calling for help from beneath the rubble just after the mudslide, but nothing has been heard since, according to witnesses and officials.
A team of search and rescue personnel, contractors with excavators, and police sniffer dogs continued the search for possible survivors on Friday.
At one point, diggers halted work, a police photographer was called in, and a hearse was later seen leaving the scene.
Emergency services declined to discuss the recovery of any bodies, saying it would be insensitive to families.
About two dozen family members watched the excavations from across the road.
“We have six people that we know aren’t accounted for,” Assistant Police Commissioner Tim Anderson told reporters.
Officers were trying to confirm the whereabouts of three other campers believed to have left the campsite.
Asked if there were any signs of life, Anderson said: “Not as of today but we live in hope.”
Authorities face questions over why people were not evacuated after reports of a smaller landslip at the campsite earlier in the day.
“We’ve heard there was possibly a small slip where people did move away from the site,” local Tauranga mayor Mahe Drysdale said.
A man hiking an hour before the landslide said he noticed water seeping out of the mountainside.
“You could see the water, it was like a wall of mud trying to break through,” Colin McGonagle told reporters.
Progress was slow as teams cleared layers of debris, said Fire and Emergency assistant national commander David Guard.
“We are operating in a complex and high-risk environment,” Guard said.
Emergency workers retrieved two bodies on Thursday from a separate landslide that hit a home in nearby Tauranga.
One of the dead was a Chinese national, officials said.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said he had spoken to families of the missing.
“Everyone is clearly highly anxious, clearly hopeful,” he told reporters. “There’s massive hope. There’s massive worry, concern.”
