By Sam Sherwood of RNZ
A local council representative drove through the Mount Maunganui campground and directly past three slips about two hours before a deadly landslide, a camper who contacted emergency services at the time says.
The woman, who was woken by one of the victims, Lisa Maclennan, early that morning, has spoken to RNZ about efforts to raise emergency services earlier that morning, including her own call to police three hours before the landslide.
She has also provided the first images of the initial slips that caused the calls to emergency services.
The victims of the landslide have been named as Lisa Anne Maclennan, 50, Måns Loke Bernhardsson, 20, Jacqualine Suzanne Wheeler, 71, Susan Doreen Knowles, 71, Sharon Maccanico, 15, and Max Furse-Kee, 15.
The woman, who did not want to be named, said she had been at the campground for about three weeks and was staying right next to Maclennan and her husband.
She said she was woken shortly before 5am on Thursday morning to Maclennan banging on her window.
“She’s like ‘Oh I’m so sorry I’m waking you up’, but the slip had pushed her campervan about a metre forward, so she said, ‘I’m just waking everyone up because I think everyone should move’.”
The woman moved her campervan straight away and Maclennan’s campervan was moved parallel to the shower block.
The woman said the group then went to the office, but there was no one there.
She said Maclennan had tried ringing the emergency number at the campground and could not get hold of anybody.
The woman said Maclennan told her she was going to try to call Civil Defence. It was at that moment the woman called police.
Shortly before calling police, the woman took some photos and video of one of three slips, including one right at her campsite. An image, supplied to RNZ, was timestamped at 6.15am and the video, which shows the slips, was taken a minute later.
A call log provided by the woman confirms she called police at 6.18am. The outgoing call lasted eight minutes.
“I explained to them about the slips. I said, ‘look, I understand that you guys will be really busy, and this might not be anything, but this is what’s happened here’.
“It was enough to push the ladies’ campervan forward, and there’s a homeless man in the toilet block, and he was actually going crazy and sort of banging on the walls and smashing things.
“And so I said, maybe you should send someone to have a look at that, just in case. You know, there’s a lot of kids here ... and they said, yeah, it is a really busy night. It’s been a busy night. It’s a busy morning, we’ll try and get a unit there.”
The woman said no one arrived until about 7.45am, when she said she saw what she described as a ute that was sign-written with Tauranga City Council. The ute stopped and the woman says she called out, “Look, I don’t know if you can see them from where you are, but there’s these slips up here, I think, you know, someone should look at them.”
The woman was unsure the man heard her. The woman said the ute then drove through the Pilot Bay side of the campground slowly past the slips that she had filmed directly in front of several campsites.
“I figured, well, everything will be fine. Someone from the council’s come, they’ve seen the slips, he’s driven past them, he’s driven through the water that was coming down from that corner that collapsed. So I had no worries after that.”
The woman then had a shower and left the campground to visit her parents.
It was not until about an hour after the fatal landslide that she returned. She said the emergency services at the scene were “amazing”.
It was about midday that she discovered that Maclennan was missing.
“The group of people that was ... camping in the area, were all in tears. There was an older couple that we were sitting with in there, and he was heartbroken. It was just terrible and so incredibly unfair.
“I don’t think there was many people that were in the surf club for the day that weren’t, you know, in tears. It was pretty difficult.”
She said Maclennan, who worked at Morrinsville Intermediate School was “being a teacher”.
“She took control. She was making sure everyone was safe. She was, you know, literally rounding people and making sure they were all safe, and being the organiser.
“Lisa [Maclennan] and her husband were amazing. And if it hadn’t been for them there, I would imagine that there would have been many more people.”
Looking back, the woman said she believed there should have been staff at the campground at all times, given the weather warnings.
“I know nothing about running camping grounds, but it seems like a no-brainer to have had people in the campground during a red rain watch and a state of emergency.
“Either they should have evacuated the campground, which is great in hindsight, but at the very least, somebody, there should have been a number of people that worked for the campground or the council on the ground during a state of emergency, because the fact that there was no one there made us all think maybe it’s not that bad.”
She said the days since the landslide had been “awful”.
“It’s dreadful, not sleeping. It’s terrible.
“I think it’s feeling extraordinarily lucky to not have been hurt and grateful that Lisa woke us up and then just incredibly sad for the families whose people didn’t get out.”
RNZ approached the Tauranga City Council and police for comment on Monday evening on the woman’s account.
“Once the recovery efforts are completed, we have secured the site and have geotechnical assessments that the landslide area is stable, there will be a process undertaken to examine the events that took place before and during this tragic event,” the council’s controller Tom McEntyre said.
“It would not be appropriate to make any comment now that could affect that process or pre-empt the outcome.”
In response to earlier questions from RNZ, Deputy National Commander Megan Stiffler confirmed Fire and Emergency received a 111 call at 5.48am on Thursday, January 22, from a person reporting a slip near the Mount Maunganui Beachside Holiday Park.
“Our call takers made contact with the Tauranga City Council, the landowners of the camping ground, and notified them of this information at 5.51am.
“The landslip that was referenced in the 111 call received at 5.48am did not impact life or property and therefore Fire and Emergency did not respond firefighters to attend, instead we notified Tauranga City Council as the landowner responsible.”
Speaking to the New Zealand Herald, Tauranga City Council chief executive Marty Grenfell said there was no record of a 111 call being referred to the council.
However, a council statement released only hours later backtracked on this version of events.
“After further inquiries, we can confirm that the Tauranga City Council’s main Contact Centre received a call from Fire and Emergency New Zealand at around 5.50am on Thursday, January 22.”
The council said the chief executive’s earlier comments referred specifically to information logged in the council’s Emergency Operations Centre, which did not receive a call.
At about 9.30am, a slip came down at the Beachside Holiday Park at Mount Maunganui, smashing into campervans, tents, vehicles and an ablution block near the Mount Hot Pools.
WorkSafe’s head of inspectorate, Rob Pope, told RNZ’s Midday Report that Tauranga City Council was one of the entities it needed to speak with and understand its part in the event.
When asked if it would be extraordinary for an investigation not to be launched given six people were presumed dead, Pope agreed but said they needed to understand the scope and context first before committing resources to a formal investigation.
WorkSafe told RNZ it was in the “very early stages” of assessing what its role may look like once the search and recovery phase was complete.
“We are currently bringing together a team of inspectors and will be working closely with New Zealand Police to determine next steps.
“We will be looking into the organisations that had a duty of care for everyone at the holiday park, and whether or not they were meeting their health and safety responsibilities.”
Currently, the focus needed to remain on the recovery efforts, WorkSafe said.
“When the time is right, our inspectors will begin engaging with witnesses and technical experts and gathering evidence from a range of sources, including the organisations involved in the operation of the holiday park and the scene.
“In the meantime, our local inspectors have also extended an offer of support to Emergency Management Bay of Plenty and other agencies to ensure that workers involved in the response are kept safe and healthy.”
Pope told RNZ that WorkSafe was working closely with police to co-ordinate their responses after the “incredibly tragic event”
He did not have a timeframe for when a decision on a formal investigation would be made but said the inspectors would be working at pace and focused on providing the right level of confidence for the families who wanted answers.
“We will be committed to addressing this issue as quickly as we can.”
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told RNZ’s Morning Report he supported Tauranga City Council’s decision to conduct a full, independent review into the landslide.
“There’s lots of concerns that people have about why they weren’t evacuated sooner. I think they are very legitimate, very good questions that need answers.”