MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Landslides hit a house and a campground in New Zealand on Thursday, leaving at least two dead while emergency crews were trying to rescue others buried in rubble, officials said.
The first hit a house in the community of Welcome Bay on New Zealand’s North Island at 4:50 a.m., police said. Two people escaped the house, and the bodies of two who were trapped inside were recovered hours later, Emergency Management Minister Mark Mitchell said.
Later the same morning, emergency services were called to a second slide at the base of nearby Mount Maunganui. The rubble hit Beachside Holiday Park in a town named after the extinct volcano. Images showed vehicles, travel trailers and an amenities block crushed by debris.
Police Superintendent Tim Anderson said the number of people missing was in the “single figures.”
No survivors or bodies had been recovered by late Thursday from the Mount Maunganui rubble, where dogs were being used to sniff for human victims, Mitchell said.
“There was a shower block and a, sort of, combined shower block-kitchen block and there were people using that at the time the slide came through and they are some of the ones that we’re working hard to try and recover now,” Mitchell told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Further north near Warkworth, a man was missing after floodwaters swept him from a road Wednesday morning as heavy rain lashed large swathes of the North Island, a police statement said.
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon urged residents in affected areas to heed local authorities’ safety advice during the extreme conditions.
“Extreme weather continues to cause dangerous conditions across the North Island. Right now, the government is doing everything we can to support those impacted,” Luxon posted on social media.
Fire and Emergency NZ commander William Pike said there were some signs of life immediately after the Mount Maunganui slide.
“Members of the public … tried to get into the rubble and did hear some voices,” Pike told reporters. “Our initial fire crew arrived and … were able to hear the same. Shortly after our initial crew arrived, we withdrew everyone from the site due to possible movement and slip.”
Mayor Mahe Drysdale said those unaccounted earlier had included people who had left the campground without notifying authorities. The campground was closed after the disaster.
Australian tourist Sonny Worrall said he was lazing in a hot pool within the campground when he heard then saw the landslide.
“I looked behind me and there’s a huge landslide coming down. And I’m still shaking from it now,” Worrall told New Zealand’s 1News news service. “I turned around and I had to jump out from my seat as fast as I could and just run.”
He looked back to see the rubble carrying a travel trailer behind him.
“It was like the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced in my life,” Worrall said.
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This version has corrected the location where a landslide hit a house, to Welcome Bay, not Bay of Plenty.