Weather: Landslide rips through retired couple’s home in Tāneatua

One moment, the retired couple were waiting for the news and to have dinner.

The next, they were wrapped around each other, squeezed into a little gap as a landslip ripped through their home on the outskirts of Tāneatua.

Persistent days of rain caused flooding and triggered slips in the Eastern Bay of Plenty cutting off the townships of Tāneatua and Rūātoki yesterday.

On Tuesday evening, Liz Van Der Aa’s parents were waiting for the news to start while her mum was making dinner.

The couple had moved on to family land on the very outskirts of Tāneatua at the end of last year and were doing up cabins to sleep in, a bathroom cabin and a shed with a lounge and kitchen, all beside a hill.

“Dad heard this noise and thought ‘what was that?’ and then instantly realised,” Van Der Aa said.

The couple had to free themselves from the wreckage and climb out a gap - where a wall used to be - in this Eastern Bay of Plenty home.

He immediately called out to his wife - who did not realise what was happening - to open the window.

“He just ran... by the time he got to mum and tried to wrap himself around her, the sink and everything was just squished up against them.”

She said the house had been pushed in by a landslide and they were “squished into this little gap by the pantry”.

The couple’s legs were stuck, which resulted in gashes as they pulled themselves from the carnage and climbed over the broken home, through the wall that was no longer there.

Damage caused by the slip after days of rain in the region.

The landslide had gone across the driveway and straight through the home.

“Anything that was in the lounge and kitchen area is all gone... the sink is up in the air and the fridge and oven are all outside,” Van Der Aa said.

The couple did not have their phones on them and needed to find help, covered in mud and in the rain.

They walked down the driveway to the highway and “luckily” there were Waiotahi contractors who drove the couple 15 minutes to their daughter’s home in Whakatāne.

“It’s just lucky someone was there.”

Van Der Aa was about to get into the shower around 8pm - two hours after the landslide - when a truck pulled up and, to her surprise, her parents walked in and her mum said she needed to go to the hospital.

Her mother had a cut on her eyebrow and blood on her forehead as well as bad bruising on her ribs and fluid around her ribs.

She spent the night in hospital and while she’s okay, the family are worried about her now being susceptible to a chest infection.

The building is now uninhabitable.

Van Der Aa went back with her father to try and salvage medication, clothes, photos, and bedding. She said the bedroom cabin was still okay for now, but it was unpredictable what else could happen.

“It still looks like more could come down,” she said of the land surrounding the home.

They hoped the cabins would be okay and they might be able to move them soon to avoid further damage.

Her parents will be staying with her until the weather improves and they have assessed the land and stability, she said.

She said “heaps” of people in the community - those they knew and strangers - had offered to help, which would happen when the weather improves.

Waiotahi Whakatāne branch manager Izaak Crook said all staff have been “exceptional” in terms of doing the work at hand, as well as holding out their hands to support the wider community.

He said helping the couple whose home was damaged by the landslip was one scenario that highlighted the team effort of all staff over the last three days and during Cyclone Gabrielle.

Family search through the destruction after a landslip tore through this Bay of Plenty home on Tuesday night. Photo / Supplied

This included things like going through the Waimana Gorge, to people that were trapped and buying groceries.

”It’s a community thing, we’re a family-owned business that cares about our community.”

A Givealittle page has been set up to help the family with the rebuild.