New video footage of the immediate aftermath of the Mount Maunganui landslide shows campers on the roof of a shower and toilet block at the Mount Maunganui campground trying to prise open the roof cladding to free those trapped.
The video, provided exclusively to the Herald, was filmed by Bill Baker, who was visiting Mount Maunganui last week from his home in Piarere, Waikato.
The 74-year-old, who’s retired, parked his motorhome on the street in front of the campground and got out to go for a walk when he heard trees cracking as the hillside collapsed at 9.31am.
“It was just mayhem with vehicles on their sides with mud pushed up against them. I saw some distraught people. I really, really felt for them. It was heartbreaking to see,” he told the Herald.
Baker said he wanted to help but wasn’t agile enough to climb onto the ablution block, which had taken the brunt of the landslide.
“I was definitely shocked and bewildered as to what do you do but fortunately there were people who were who were rushing in and amongst it trying to get to those people they’d heard calling out, which must have been extremely difficult.”
The shower and toilet block has been a key area of focus for emergency staff who continue to search for the missing in what’s now a recovery operation.
The recovery operation is focused on six victims.
“I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Some people had clambered onto the roof and were trying to get cladding off the building,” Baker said.
The video shows a section of what appears to be the roof of the ablution block upturned next to a large pōhutukawa, which came down in the slip.
A woman can be heard saying that a lady who had been assisting others amid the storm was trapped beneath the rubble.
“That poor lady who’s been helping everybody all night,” the camper says.
That woman was Morrinsville teacher Lisa Maclennan, who, from about 5am, began waking people to warn them to move away from the base of the mountain after small slips were already visible.
Maclennan, who perished in the disaster, has been referred to as a “hero” by other campers.
Baker also praised her bravery and selflessness for thinking of others and said it was unthinkable she’d been lost in the disaster.
He said he saw vast amounts of water coming down the side of the mountain after the hillside gave way.
“There was a stream of clear flowing water coming through. It was coming onto the roadway up to those top sites.”
Reflecting on what he’d witnessed had taken its toll, Baker said, and he’d had a nightmare following the tragedy where he thought he was in another location and witnessed another landslide.
He’d been thinking a lot about the families of those who had lost loved ones, their workmates and acquaintances.
“I just feel for them so much. What a harrowing situation, and to have people trapped there for quite some time before they could even know whether they were alive or not.”
Michael Morrah is a senior investigative reporter/team leader at the Herald. He won News Journalist of the Year at the 2025 Voyager Media Awards and has twice been named Reporter of the Year at the New Zealand Television Awards. He has been a broadcast journalist for 20 years and joined the Herald’s video team in July 2024.