MELBOURNE: Landslides hit a campground and a house in New Zealand and emergency crews were trying to rescue people buried in rubble, officials said Thursday.
Emergency services were called to the slide at the base of Mount Maunganui on New Zealand’s North Island after 9:30 a.m. The rubble hit Beachside Holiday Park in a town named after the extinct volcano. Images showed vehicles, travel trailers and a bathroom block crushed by debris.
Police Superintendent Tim Anderson said the number of people missing was in the “single figures” but didn’t say further how many were affected.
Another landslide hit a house in the nearby Welcome Bay community at 4:50 a.m, a police statement said. Two people escaped the house but two others were missing, Anderson said. A rescue operation was underway there.
Further north near Warkworth, a man remained missing after floodwaters swept him from a road Wednesday morning as heavy rain lashed large swathes of the North Island, a police statement said.
