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.”
Rescuers dig for six missing in New Zealand landslide
https://arab.news/4jfer
Rescuers dig for six missing in New Zealand landslide
- Landslide from an extinct volcano crashed into a popular campsite in northern New Zealand
- Voices could be heard calling for help from beneath the rubble just after the mudslide
Backlash as Australia kills dingoes after backpacker death
- The euthanization program has stirred debate about how to manage the local population of dingoes
- Wildlife experts said killing the animals was the wrong response and may threaten the island’s dingo population
SYDNEY: Australian authorities have sparked a backlash by killing a group of dingoes linked to the death of a young Canadian woman on an island in the country’s east.
The Queensland government said six animals were put down after 19-year-old backpacker Piper James’s body was found on January 19 at a beach on the World Heritage-listed island of K’gari.
The euthanization program has stirred debate about how to manage the local population of dingoes, a sandy-colored canine believed to have first arrived in Australia 4,000 to 5,000 years ago.
An autopsy conducted on James’ body found evidence “consistent with drowning” but also detected injuries corresponding to dingo bites.
“Pre-mortem dingo bite marks are not likely to have caused immediate death,” said a spokesperson for the Coroners Court of Queensland.
The coroner’s investigation into the cause of death was expected to take several weeks.
In response, the Queensland government said a pack of 10 dingoes involved would be euthanized after rangers had observed some “aggressive behavior.”
Six of the dingoes had already been euthanized, the state’s environment minister, Andrew Powell, told reporters Sunday.
“Obviously, the operation will continue,” he said.
The traditional owners of K’gari, the Butchulla people, said the state’s failure to consult with them before euthanizing the dingoes — or wongari in their language — was “unexpected and disappointing.”
“Once again, it feels as though economic priorities are being placed above the voices of the people and traditional owners, which is frustrating and difficult to accept,” the Butchulla Aboriginal Corporation said in a statement to Australian media this week.
‘You are food’
Wildlife experts said killing the animals was the wrong response and may threaten the island’s dingo population, estimated at just 70-200 animals.
Given their small numbers, killing a pack of 10 animals would harm the population’s genetic diversity, said Mathew Crowther, professor of quantitative conservation biology at the University of Sydney.
“There’s no moral from the dingoes’ point of view. They’re just being wild animals, doing wild things,” Crowther said.
Dingoes tend to lose their fear of people as they interact with tourists, some of whom defy advice against feeding the animals.
“That’s the worst thing you can do to a wild animal,” Crowther said.
“They just relate humans to food, and if you don’t give them food, well, you are food — that’s basically how it is.”
Dingoes are wild, predatory animals and need to be treated with respect, said Bill Bateman, associate professor in the school of molecular and life sciences at Curtin University.
The canines are more likely to attack children or people who are alone, and may be triggered when people turn their backs or run, he said.
“These are important animals, and therefore we need to change the way we deal with them, otherwise we’re just going to keep reacting to these attacks and driving the population of dingoes down,” Bateman said.
Wildlife managers, rangers, Indigenous people and tourism operators need to work together so that humans and dingoes can coexist on the island, he said.
Todd James, the father of Piper, has described on social media how his family’s hearts were “shattered” by her death.
News of the dingoes’ euthanization was “heart-wrenching,” he told Australian media, adding however that he recognized it may be necessary for safety because of the pack’s behavior.
