Three generations of a “lovely” family lived in the Pāpāmoa home in which a grandmother and her grandson were killed in a landslide yesterday.
Confirmation of the deaths came from a surviving family member who said, “It’s our house and our family lost.” However, they did not directly provide details on who had died.
A person close to the family told the Herald they understood it was the grandmother and her 10-year-old grandson.
Images of the hillside above Welcome Bay Rd this morning show a home completely taken out by a large slip, but with a mangled roof and house frame still standing above the rubble.
The Herald has also spoken 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].”
About 8.30pm yesterday, police confirmed they had recovered two bodies from the site of the slip. Emergency services were called to the incident about 4.15am. Another person was seriously injured in the slip.
In Mount Maunganui, a few kilometres north, another massive slip at a campground has left six people unaccounted for and three others on a list of campers who had not checked out.
However, the resident of Welcome Bay Rd said she never had any sense that a slip could occur on the hills above them, just a kilometre inland from the beach.
“You would never imagine you would have a slip because it was solid. You know when you feel like it’s a crumbly mountain that you feel something will come falling at some point.
“It wasn’t, it was a 100% solid hill. It was a hill covered in grass, you would see cattle, you would see lambs. From time to time, you would see lambs coming into your property.”
The father at the destroyed property had built a garage and a chicken coop with up to 30 chickens, the neighbour said.
“He was a big fan of cars, so he would have car parts a lot. He was a handyman, so he was always doing things on the property, building and mowing the lawns and everything.
“They had a big chicken coop beside the house, one of the fun things of the house was to feed the chickens. It was a very big chicken area that is also gone [in the slip].”
The neighbour also confirmed the rough age of the boy who is understood to have died.
“I’ve seen the boy many times, and it looked like a 9, 10-year-old boy. When I heard there was an elderly person and a kid missing that was around 10 years old, I said, yeah, that sounds like them.”
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has skipped the annual Rātana celebrations today and instead travelled to weather-hit regions after a tropical storm hit the top of New Zealand on Wednesday.
Police Commissioner Richard Chambers said it could take days for families to get answers about the Mount Maunganui campground slip, given the complexities at the scene.
Anxious family members of those missing have gathered at the campground awaiting news of their loved ones as recovery efforts continue.
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