A morning of tumult and terror in Mount Maunganui

Saturday, 24 January 2026

On Thursday, a major landslide ploughed through Mount Maunganui Beachside Holiday Park, leaving six people - including two teenagers - missing and feared dead. TONY WALL retraces the events of that tragic morning.

It felt like it was never going to stop raining in Tauranga on Wednesday. Locals said it felt worse than Cyclone Gabrielle, which largely skirted Tauranga, and that was borne out by the figures - the 274mm of rain that fell in the 24 hours up to 9am on Thursday officially made it the city’s wettest day on record.

It was no surprise, then, when the Mount Maunganui Lifeguards posted pictures on Facebook at 8.45am on Thursday advising that there were several slips on Mauao - there usually are after heavy rain.

“The base track has been washed out in several locations and is not accessible. Stay safe,” the post said.

Meanwhile, life went on, people going for their morning walks or checking out the still-raging surf or grabbing a coffee.

Some went for an early soak at the Mount Hotpools. At the neighbouring Mt Maunganui Beachside Holiday Park, people aired out their soaking tents and checked their caravans and camper vans for damage.

Photos taken by campers before disaster struck show muddy water flowing through the camp, surrounding tents.

A tent in a pool of muddy water before the slip.

Paul Leslie, who lives in his caravan, had booked into the Pilot Bay side of the council-owned camp ground when he heard bad weather was coming, thinking it was more sheltered than the ocean, surf-club side.

He had a shower at the ablutions block about 7.30am and noticed streams of muddy water pouring down both sides of the block.

Leslie was surprised that no evacuations were happening. Tauranga City Council staff were inspecting sites outside the camp, but not the camp itself.

Colin McGonagle said he watched muddy water pour from the hillside just two hours before the landslide came down, and briefly spoke with a man and daughter before saying goodbye.

Colin McGonagle was at the campsite two hours before the major landslide.

“I’m not sure if they were still there when the slip came,” McGonagle told Stuff on Friday. He hadn’t heard any news.

Another woman was so concerned about what was happening she went around rousing people from their beds - RNZ reported she was one of those later caught in the landslide.

Surfer William Gardner, originally from the UK, was on his 40ft cruising yacht that he lives on with his partner and child in Pilot Bay and was getting his jet ski ready to go for a surf at about 9.30am.

Several people are unaccounted for after the slip hit a Mount Maunganui campsite.

He looked over and saw a massive landslide come down into the camp ground, taking out the ablutions block.

Hearing screams, he and his surfing mate jumped on the jetski and “blasted” towards the boat ramp near the camping ground.

Up in the high rise apartments that overlook the pools and camp area, people pulled out their phones and recorded dramatic footage of a wall of earth with pohutukawa trees on top sliding into the camp ground, like something from a disaster movie.

Australian tourist Glynn Jones had been walking on the beach and was just about to return to his hotel opposite the hot pools when he heard a crack and saw the pohutakawa coming towards him.

Several people unaccounted for after major slip hits Mount Maunganui campsite.

Then all of a sudden a caravan was tossed in the air.

Another Aussie tourist, Sonny Worrall, from Newcastle, was soaking in a hot tub at the pools; he was in the pool nearest to the cinder block wall at the back of the facility.

All of a sudden a caravan came crashing through the wall right into the pool he was in, forcing him to run and dive into another pool to get away.

“It was the scariest thing I’ve ever felt in my life,” he told Stuff.

When Gardner reached shore he ran to the scene, barefoot. He and his mate joined others who’d arrived and began calling out to survivors.

Gardner couldn’t hear anything, but others reckoned they could hear voices calling for help from under the debris.

Heroic actions described by witness at Mount Maunganui landslide

They realised they would need to get the roof off the toilet block, so Gardner, a roofer by trade, raced to his nearby van and got some tools.

He removed Tek screws so they could pull the iron sheets off, at which point he saw that there was mud “filled to the roof”.

A feeling of sadness immediately came over him, because he knew there was no budging that mud.

Watching all this was Alanna Ratna, a local who’d been on her usual morning walk and heard a sound “like thunder”.

Several people are still missing, including children, after a major landslide.

She watched Gardner and the others desperately working to get the roof off and felt they were heroes.

Ratna saw a teenage boy appear to climb out of the top of the rubble, but the worst thing was seeing distraught parents wanting to get to their children.

“I can’t even begin to imagine the devastation of your child being buried in front of you,” she told Stuff. “There’s nothing worse than that.”

When emergency services arrived, some of the civilian helpers were told to leave because they didn’t have safety gear - or, in Gardner’s case, even shoes.

Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell later explained that it was a difficult environment and there were fears of further slips.

“We don’t want to create another disaster with more people lost,” he told Stuff.

As Fire and Emergency staff got to work at the site, police and other first responders gathered at the surf club, taking the names of campers to check them off their list.

The club became a gathering spot for campers, journalists and politicians until it was suddenly evacuated later in the day for fear of further slip activity.

Meanwhile, family members of the missing walked around the area in a daze.

Tauranga deputy mayor Jen Scoular comforted one man with a European accent - Tauranga MP Sam Uffindell advised that the man and his wife had lost a couple of loved ones.

Emergency crews worked all through the night, but by Friday morning, still no bodies had been found. At one point, a hearse arrived, and left again.

Police said later in the day that six people, including two teenagers, were missing, and the operation remained a rescue mission.

As the frantic search for survivors or remains continued, locals began asking questions about why the campground hadn’t been evacuated earlier.

Mayor Mahe Drysdale said it was too soon to talk about that while the rescue was still under way. An independent review into the lead up to the slip would be commissioned, he said.

Some people believe the sacred maunga should remain closed indefinitely.

Ngāi Te Rangi kaumātua Kehu Kehu Butler said he believed it should be closed to the public.

“I think it’s time to give it a long rest,” he said.