MOUNT MAUNGANUI, New Zealand: Rescuers dug into deep mud searching for at least six missing people Friday after a landslide from an extinct volcano crashed into a popular campsite in northern New Zealand.
Police said a 15-year-old was the youngest person unaccounted for after a chunk of Mount Maunganui plowed into holidaymakers Thursday, smashing a shower block, camper vans and caravans.
Battered vehicles were carted away after being pulled out of the mud.
Voices could be heard calling for help from beneath the rubble just after the mudslide, which struck the tourist spot following heavy rain that lashed a large swathe of New Zealand’s North Island.
But nothing has been heard since then, witnesses and emergency officials say.
A team of search and rescue personnel, contractors with mechanical excavators, and police sniffer dogs worked through the night and into the following day in search of possible survivors.
No evacuation
At one point in the search, an AFP reporter at the scene saw the diggers call a halt to their work. A police photographer was called in, and a hearse was later seen leaving the scene.
Emergency services officials 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 at the scene.
Officers were trying to confirm the whereabouts of three other campers believed to have left the campsite, he said.
Asked if there were any signs of life, Anderson said: “Not as of today but we live in hope.”
New Zealand authorities are facing questions over why people were not evacuated following reports of a landslip at the campsite earlier in the day.
“We’ve heard there was possibly a small slip where people did move away from from the site,” local Tauranga mayor Mahe Drysdale said.
“Those questions will be answered.”
‘Complex and high-risk’
A man hiking in the area an hour before the landslide, Colin McGonagle, said he had noticed water seeping out of the mountainside.
“You could see the water, it was like a wall of mud trying to break through,” he told reporters.
Progress in the rescue operation 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.
“We will continue the operation until the search is complete.”
Emergency workers retrieved two bodies on Thursday from a separate landslide that plowed into a home in the nearby harborside city of Tauranga.
One of the dead was a Chinese national, officials said.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said he had spoken to families of the missing at the campsite.
“Everyone is clearly highly anxious, clearly hopeful,” he told reporters. “There’s massive hope. There’s massive worry, concern.”