Brian Kelly: Newstalk ZB Sports reporter on the slip that hit tents and campers at a Mount Maunganui campsite

People still aren't accounted for in Mount Maunganui's Beachside Holiday Park after a landslide roared into the campsite at the base of the mountain at about 9.30 this morning.  

Images show a caravan on its side inside the nearby the hot pools.  

Newstalk ZB Sport reporter Brian Kelly says about 30 police cars have arrived – the most he's seen in the town.   

He says there’s a couple of helicopters, seven or eight fire engines, and a digger on scene, and the only comment he’s gotten is from a police officer who was sprinting past, saying the slip is bad. 

The torrential rain that's lashed the North Island's east coast has caused flooding, slips, and road closures. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Kerry Wooden Morning's podcast from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Headb broakcast to Brian Kelly has been at the scene
of the slip at Mount monganu and he's with us now.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Good Brian, gooday, John, how are you doing? Jim?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Well? Okay, talk us through what happened.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
First of all, well, as far as we can ascertain,
a couple of hours ago and now, a large piece
of what they call Malow. Most people just know it
is Mault Mongonui, but it's actually the correct name is Malow.
It came down slid into the camping ground on the
Pilot Bay side of the mount, not the ocean side,
but the opposite side. And it was a very big

(00:43):
piece of land that slipped into the camping ground and
took the toilet block as an old concrete toilet block there,
took that and apparently that has also crashed into the
mount hot pools, which are quite famous over there at
Mount Mongnui. So at the moment, the response has been incredible.
I've never seen so many emergency vehicles in Taharan are

(01:03):
in one place, there were over thirty police cars rushed
to the scene. There's a couple of helicopters, including a
Royal New Zealand Air Force helicopter the seven or eight
fire engines. A digger has just gone and I spoke
to one policeman who was just sprinting down there, who
I knew, and I said, looks pretty bad. He said
it is bad, and that was the only comment that
I got, so at the moment, you know, there's a

(01:24):
lot of wreck campers, wreck camping vans and tents, so
that's all we can ascertain at the stage.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Did you just happen to be there, Brian, or were
you down there for a reason.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
We went over there my wife at a meeting and
I said we'll have a coffee afterwards. And while we
were driving over, a couple of police cars went past.
Then I saw the rescue helicopter and I thought, oh,
something's happening in the mountain. When we got to the
place of the meeting, the people were out on the
street saying that it was crazy. There was even one
ambulance that actually had to physically drive into a vehicle
to get it out of the way, so there was

(01:53):
a lot of urgency.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
I'm looking at some fidos and the weather looks fine,
obviously the rain preceded this.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah, it was from the overnight downpour. In fact, one
other part of the man has been taken out as well,
out of mallow and that was on the ocean side,
the steps that lead up to the walking track that
thousands of people used on a daily basis by the
surf club. That track's been washed away as well. So
that was the first sign, and that happened in the
early hours of the morning. I'm getting but this happened

(02:22):
probably around about ten o'clock or thereabouts this morning's obviously
the amount of water that's fallen in this area has
just had an effect. And apparently there was a loud
rumbling before it happened and then just bang with bottle stream,
so pretty awful.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
So from what you saw when you were there, what
was happening with people in the campgrounds was I imagined.
There's still be quite a few people there.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
You couldn't get close enough that the police. In fact,
there goes another emergency vehicle now heading to the mound,
so they just continue to head over there. The area
is now marked off. Police cordon is in place about
five hundred meters out, so they're keeping people as far
away as possible, so they can, I guess, you know,
just try and find out what has happened. There's a

(03:07):
lot of those little easy ups that have been put
up in place for the emergency services to take care
of things. There is some gray where they're moving in,
but certainly it's not cold at the moment, but it
has been sunny and what was quite surreal in Pilot Bay.
People were still going about their business and there was
World ocean rowing champion in a twig out training as well,

(03:27):
So yeah, it was a pretty amazing scene.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
And I'll let you move on just to check. And
you may not have worked this out in your head,
but any idea what sort of area of the slipper's
covering this particular one.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
It's probably covered maybe one hundred meters, so it's hard
to tell. Didn't get close enough, but I could see
where it had come down, and it's certainly a large
swathe of mao, so it is a big, big piece
of brown clay that's just slid down, and it would
have been saturated as well, so it would have been
very muddy and then hit with force, hit the tents

(03:59):
and the camper vans that were parked in the camping ground.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
I appreciate your reporting on Brian. Thank you very much
broadcaster Brian Kelly at Mount Munganuwi and of course we
will keep you updated on developments right through the day
and into the evening.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
For more from Kerry Wood and Mornings, listen live to
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