The grandmother and grandson killed in a Pāpāmoa landslide have today been named as Austen Keith Richardson, 10, and Yao Fang, 71.
The fatal landslide on January 22 occurred about 4am on Welcome Bay Rd, Pāpāmoa. Another person was seriously injured in the slip.
“Austen and his grandmother had an incredibly close relationship – with Austen affectionately calling her Nai Nai," Austen’s parents Keith and Angel said in a statement.
“Austen was born in Shanghai, China, and we moved back to New Zealand with him when he was about 8 months old.
“Since Austen was born, Fang has spent extended periods of time with us in New Zealand.
“Austen had just finished at Arataki School where he thrived in the Montessori class. It perfectly suited his personality. He had been accepted to Bethlehem College and was due to start as a Year 7 at the school shortly.”
They described the young boy as a “gifted musician” and said he was “extremely mechanically minded, loved building Lego, riding motorbikes, Pokémon and solving math equations”.
“The weekend before the tragedy, we visited the Kumeū Classic Car and Hot Rod Festival before surprising him with his dream motocross bike from a mate on the way home. This will forever be a treasured memory.
“We also recently attended the Annual Honda Kids Camp at Lake Rotoiti where he always loved meeting his mates from previous years and making new friendships.
“Austen spoke Mandarin fluently, was proud of his Chinese heritage and loved visiting China on our trips back,” his parents said.
The pair also spoke about how lucky they were Fang spent time with them as a family.
“She was a beautiful mother and grandmother, deeply caring, so generous and always prioritising looking after others ahead of herself,” they said.
“Fang worked as an architect in China while raising Angel as a solo parent.
“She loved the nature in New Zealand, helped us grow an incredible vegetable garden, looked after our chickens, and joined us at Chinese Methodist Church in Greerton.
“We are grateful for the amazing support we have received from family and friends, the wider community as well as the emergency services and support agencies who have wrapped around us as we come to terms with this.
“We are absolutely devastated by the loss of our treasured son and his beloved Nai Nai.”
Images of the hillside above Welcome Bay Rd show a home completely taken out by a large slip, but with a mangled roof and house frame still standing above the rubble.
The police cordon to Welcome Bay Rd was lifted Sunday morning, with several properties with houses and structures destroyed by multiple slips red-stickered.
However, security guards parked along the side of Welcome Bay Rd continued to question anyone who parked along the street – saying they were acting on police orders.
About 8.30pm Friday, police confirmed they had recovered two bodies from Welcome Bay Rd.
The Herald spoke to a neighbour of the family who described them as “amazing people”.
“They were one of those families that don’t hesitate to come and help you for any reason and check on you and see how you were. Excellent neighbours, honestly.
“It’s just unfair, when it happens to a very lovely family, lovely people. You don’t wish this on anyone, but on top of it, they were amazing people.”
The neighbour said a New Zealand man had lived in the area for a long time. He lived with his wife, their son and his wife’s parents.
The mother and her parents immigrated from somewhere in Asia, the neighbour said.
“I know that he’s been here for ages. He’s a Kiwi, and once we talked about how this area was before anyone was here, and how people grew up here.
“He told us stories about other neighbours [in the past].”
Chalium Poppy, the director of music at St Peter’s Anglican Church in Mount Maunganui, gave private music lessons for vocals and piano to the 10-year-old boy killed in the landslide.
Poppy told the Herald Austen had a music lesson scheduled the day of his death.
“I was teaching and I got a text which I checked when I was finished teaching and it was from a family friend of the parents saying ‘I don’t know whether you know but Austen, he’s missing in the slips, so he won’t be coming to your lesson today’.
“And I have to admit that I’ve been teaching all morning, so I hadn’t seen the news, so I wasn’t aware that there were these big slips.”
Poppy said the boy had not been a student of his for long, but he was keen to learn.
“I was building up, you know, a rapport with him and a relationship as you do with your students, and that takes time.
“He was really talkative, so highly inquisitive. The lessons were great, but he just had this real sort of sponge for knowledge.
“So you get through something and then he asks all these follow up questions and whatnot about the way the music works or, you know, the composers. So he was just a very sort of inquisitive and curious mind.”
Austen had been referred to Poppy by a friend of the Richardson family. He was teaching the Richardson family friend’s son just before the Herald called him.
“The two mothers are quite close friends through their church, and so one started his son with lessons for me and told the other mother who was looking for a piano teacher for her child too.”
Poppy said he was still coming to terms with the death of his student.
“It really hasn’t sunken in yet in terms of Austen’s passing if I’m honest.
“There’s 1000 calls that you get as a music teacher from students, and you know it’s tonsillitis or they’re not coming today, they’ve got the flu. It’s like the call you never get and that you never expect to get that they’re not coming because they’re dead.”