Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Minister for Emergency Management and Recovery Mark Mitchell speak from the Mount Maunganui Surf Life Saving Club.
Six people are unaccounted for, including a 15-year-old, and three others are being sought after a slip hit a holiday park in Mount Maunganui.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon spoke in Tauranga this afternoon after meeting with the families of those impacted.
He described the event as an “absolutetragedy”.
He said it was an “immense privilege” to meet with family members waiting to hear news.
“They are grieving incredibly hard, and I know that New Zealand grieves with them.
“All we can do is make sure that we’re offering the very best support to those families, and I feel very confident that we are.”
Six people are confirmed unaccounted for and three others on a list of campers that had not checked out. They may be international tourists who had since left the area, authorities said.
Police have also confirmed that at least two teenagers are among the list – the youngest being 15, according to Fire and Emergency NZ’s assistant national commissioner David Guard.
‘Live in hope’
Bay of Plenty Police Superintendent Tim Anderson said there haven’t been any signs of life under the rubble today, “but we live in hope”.
“We have six people that we know are unaccounted for, and we have a further list of three that we’re working through,” he told reporters.
“It’s unlikely that those other three are within the environs of our scene that we’re working with, but we would like the public’s information on that.”
Police have launched an appeal to the public on their website for more information that can be passed on to the investigation team to use, Anderson said.
“There is a portal, so anyone that has any cellphone footage, any camera footage, anything like that they’d like to share with the investigation team, they can go on to the New Zealand Police website now, get hold of that portal, and then download their videos and camera footage for there.”
Welcome Bay Rd, Tauranga, the scene of double fatality following a landslip. Photo / Michael Craig
Luxon thanked first responders, local emergency teams, NEMA, councils, local MPs and marae for the work they’ve done during the response.
He also praised locals for banding together to help each other out, noting he’d visited people working with their neighbours to clear debris with “spades and buckets”.
Questions to be answered
Tauranga Mayor Mahé Drysdale was asked why campers weren’t evacuated earlier.
The Herald cited the case of a woman who yelled at campers to evacuate about 5am after a slip.
