Four hours to disaster: The warnings before the deadly landslide
Tuesday, 27 January 2026
For four long hours before the hillside collapsed, danger signs rippled through Mount Maunganui’s Beachside Holiday Park.
Campers were woken in the dark. A local man tried desperately to raise the alarm. Lifeguards issued a warning on social media.
But no evacuations were carried out. Campers have shared their stories, helping to construct the timeline below, including the discovery of three slips by the campground, and what happened when a council vehicle arrived in the hours before tragedy struck.
The slip about 9.30am on Thursday was one of several on Mauao after the rain.
This is how the morning unfolded.
5am: ‘A hero’ who warned campers before the landslide
A woman staying at the Mount Maunganui Beachside Holiday Park realised something was wrong.
At around 5am, she knocked on doors and went from tent to tent, waking fellow campers and warning them that the bank above was starting to crumble.
The woman was later identified as Morrinsville teacher Lisa Maclennan, one of the victims of the Mt Maunganui landslide.
Camper Lance Macfarlane told the New Zealand Herald he was asleep in a tent with his daughter when Maclennan woke them.
“I think she saved us,” he told the Herald. “We could have been asleep if she didn’t wake us up. I could have still been there sleeping when the big one came down.”
Macfarlane said Maclennan managed to get some of the other campers to move away from the base of the mountain.
“She was warning everyone that there were slips and she recommended that they move.”
“She said it felt like an earthquake [when mud hit her campervan]. She told me if she didn’t wake me up and warn us and then something happened, that it would forever be in the back of her mind.
“I think she’s a hero. She has done her best but ended up being caught in it.”
Maclennan was remembered as a much-loved literacy centre tutor at Morrinsville Intermediate School.
5.47am: A desperate call for help
Local man Alister McHardy was walking near Mauao just before 6am when he saw two significant slips on the Beachside of the mountain.
His call logs showed he rang 111 at 5.47am and saw early-morning walkers above, the Herald reported.
McHardy said the call taker told him the situation was a council matter and said the council would be notified.
“I had a gut feeling it was going to get much worse,” he said.
McHardy rushed to the nearby surf club to alert lifeguards and then began waking campers himself.
“I didn’t want to waste time,” he said.
5.51am: Fenz notified city council and camping ground
Fenz confirmed it had received a slip report hours before the deadly landslide but did not send firefighters to the scene.
Deputy National Commander Megan Stiffler said they received a call from a person at 5.48am reporting a slip near the Mt Maunganui Beachside Holiday Park.
Fenz call takers made contact with the Tauranga City Council - the landowners of the camping ground - and notified them of this information at 5.51am, Stiffler said.
But no firefighters were deployed.
'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 Tauraunga City Council as the landowner responsible.“
The council, in a statement on Monday afternoon, confirmed that its main contact centre was contacted by Fenz, but did not elaborate on subsequent actions taken.
Police contacted 6.18am, council worker reportedly does 7.45am driveby
A camper who had been woken by victim Lisa Maclennan called police at 6.18am, and provided imagery of a slip, one of three they had seen at this point, right at her campsite.
A call log showed she was on the emergency services call for eight minutes.
She said no-one arrived until 7.45am when a ute with Tauranga City Council livery drove onto the site, and progressed around the campground slowly past the slips.
The woman said it came as a relief to see the council vehicle.
“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.”
7.30am: Locals watched water surging from the hillside
McHardy said the mountain was visibly changing at that time.
He took a photograph at 7.35am, showing freshly collapsed earth on the hillside, with two people walking dangerously close to its unstable edge.
Camper Paul Leslie told Stuff he had noticed muddy water pouring down behind the park’s ablution block hours before the hillside collapsed onto it.
Leslie said he woke around 7am and went for a walk, seeing closed tracks and council staff assessing slips around Mauao.
He said he was surprised to see that no evacuations were taking place around the surf club after a slip had already come down nearby.
Local resident Colin McGonagle said he watched muddy water surge from the hillside just two hours before the major landslide came down.
He took photographs at the exact spot where the deadly slip would later occur.
“It was wet, really wet,” he said.
“We were saying it was like a wall was moving. You could see the mud just wanting to come out.”
“There was no panic. There was no evacuation notice. No panic.”
8.02am: Tracks closed, but no evacuation
At 8.02am, Tauranga City Council posted on social media that Mauao’s tracks were closed for a day.
“Due to some large slips, Mauao has been closed for the day. Fencing is getting put up, and we are hoping to get contractors in soon to start cleaning up,” the post said.
But no evacuation order was issued.
The Beachside Holiday Park and the Mount Hot Pools remained open.
Some media reports indicated the tracks were closed at 8.56 am.
Tauranga City Council said there will be a process undertaken to examine the events that took place before and during this tragic event.
No further comment was provided by the council.
8.45am: Warnings posted by lifeguards
At 8.45am, Mount Maunganui Lifeguards posted photographs and videos on Facebook showing multiple slips on Mauao, warning that heavy rain had caused instability on the mountain.
“The base track has been washed out in several locations and is not accessible. Stay safe,” the post read.
Despite the warning, people continued with their morning routines - heading out for walks, stopping to watch the still-raging surf, or grabbing a coffee nearby.
9.30am: The disaster struck
A massive landslide tore through the holiday park, flattening a toilet block, tents and caravans.
Those who escaped said they could hear screaming from beneath the rubble.
Emergency services arrived after the slip.
Australian tourist Sonny Worrall said he had to dive into the next pool to avoid being struck.
“As I’m swimming, I heard this huge landslide behind me, trees cracking, and there was a caravan that almost hit me. I was just fearing for my life,” he said. “It was the scariest thing I’ve ever felt in my life.”
Worrall said the scene felt “like a movie”.
“Luckily there were no children in the kids’ pool. But who knows — there could have been someone inside the caravan that was swept over.”
Canadian tourist Dion Siluch was having a massage at the Mount Pools when the “whole room started shaking like crazy”.
When Siluch looked outside, he was stunned to see a campervan resting in the pool.
He stepped outside and started filming, capturing the chaotic scene as muddy water surged through the area.
“It was a massive disaster,” he said.
Although the landslide initially appeared to move slowly, it descended in a matter of seconds, he said.
Siluch said there were about 20 to 25 people in the pools at the time and said if anyone had been in the children’s pool or spa pools, the outcome could have been far worse.
The landslide and heavy flooding struck Tauranga and the surrounding Western Bay of Plenty during what meteorologists say was the wettest 24-hour period of rainfall on record overnight Wednesday.
The deadly landslide left six people missing and shattered families across New Zealand and overseas.
Police have identified the six people missing as Sharon Maccanico, 15; Susan Knowles, 71, from Rotorua; Lisa Maclennan, 51, from Morrinsville; Måns Bernhardsson, 20, from Sweden; Jacqualine Wheeler, 71, from Rotorua; and Max Furse-Kee, 15, from Auckland.