Mark Mitchell: Emergency Management Minister on the rescue efforts after the landslide at Mount Maunganui

Destruction and tragedy have come in the wake of slips caused by record rainfall in the upper North Island. 

Police have confirmed two bodies have been found following an early morning landslide on Pāpāmoa's Welcome Bay Road. 

As well, a man is still missing after being swept away by the Mahurangi River north of Warkworth on Wednesday. 

Hundreds of homes remain without power and there's widespread closures on the Coromandel Peninsula, Bay of Plenty and Gisborne District on State Highways 2, 25 and 35. 

Emergency Management Minister Mark Mitchell told Mike Hosking unfortunately tragedies like this happen with the amount of rain we received. 

He says the ground loses its ability to soak up any more water, which is why slips have been so widespread across the eastern seaboard. 

Rescuers at the base of Mount Maunganui have been working through the night and into the morning to find campers buried by a landslide.  

A source has told the Herald there could be up to nine people unaccounted for —including children— after the hill gave way and smashed through a popular campsite and hot pools.  

Mitchell told Hosking there's no timeline for how rescue efforts will unfold.  

He says a lot of earth has come down and destroyed buildings, campervans, and caravans. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Update for you from the mount. We've all seen the
land movement in the frantic search. Of course, Mark Mitchell
is the Minister for Emergency Management and is with us
morning morning, Mike. Are we any closer this morning to
where we need to be?

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Well, they will be closer because obviously they're working through
the night and there you know that there's a lot
of earth that's come down, destroyed buildings, camp events and caravans,
so you know, and it's a it's a difficult and
challenging environment, but they're working as hard as they and
as fast as they can.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Any sort of timeline as to when we get to
where we need to be.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
No, I haven't been given a timeline and they just
they'll just keep working and keep going until they've recovered
and got everyone out of there.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
What's the systems, the responses you've seen this week, the
delivery of help and when it was needed, has it worked?
Is it working?

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Yeah, it's been outstanding, you know, right from the mayors
and councils, local cdium groups, community groups, IW and HAPU.
Of course, our first responders are always outstanding. The best
response to these events is holy community and get better
as that better at that as a country, and I've
seen that. I've been up and down the country the
last week, and I've seen that ex of bravery. Of course,

(01:09):
we get tragedies like this because unfortunately we've had so
much weather and rain that the ground had lost the
ability to absorb anymore. And that's why we've just seen
a messive amunt of slips sort of right down our
eastern seaboardrod.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Which brings me to the question. It seems to me
we've got two different stories, the mount story and obviously
Papamo Welcome Bay tragedy. So there's that, but then there's
that more general story that there are parts of this
country that you've got to start asking some serious questions
about how many people live there, how many roads we're
going to repair, how long are we going to do
this for, and whether we need to get stuck into

(01:45):
a fairly serious conversation, don't.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
You Yeah, so that, yes, I agree, that's a much
harder and broader conversation that we had between central and
local governments and communities, because yes, you know, inundation, adaptation,
I mean, you know, those are all serious questions that
we have to ask, and we have to be brave
enough to deal with. There's quite at Simon Watts sort
of hidden up quite a bit of work around that.

(02:09):
I'm supporting them, and of course local governments have turned
their mind to that into doing a few bit of
work on them as well.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
But for today at the Mount, we simply have to
let them do their work and wait.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, and it's very tough. It's obviously, you know, very
somber mood. As I was leaving, was talking to one
of the police officers that just broke down in tears
that there's a lot of emotion. Everyone is trying to
wrap as much support around the families as we can
and try and shoulder as much as we can with
them because as you can imagine, when you've got loved
ones trapped in a landslide, the waiting is torturous.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Indeed, go well, I make appreciate it very much and
to pass on our best to all concerned. Mark Mitchell,
who is in the Bay of course this morning.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
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