The damaged property at Welcome Bay. Photo: RNZ / Calvin Samuel
A vigil was held at a church in Tauranga on Friday night for a young boy who died in a Pāpāmoa landslide.
Two people, including the boy, had been confirmed dead in Welcome Bay, while six people were known to be missing in a separate landslide at the base of Mt Maunganui.
St Peter's Anglican Church musical director Chalium Poppy said the boy - who died with a relative in a house on Welcome Bay Road - was due to come to a piano lesson at the Mt Maunganui church on Thursday.
"It's all just very raw, like it's just happening, there are still people that are missing," he said.
"We're just responding the only way that… the church knows how, and that's to sort of open up our doors, provide sanctuary, provide a place for people to come and pray and sit in silence and light a candle. We're here to serve the community, so that's exactly what we do, and especially in times of need."
Poppy said the boy only recently began learning how to play piano with him.
"He was just really bright and incredibly talkative… asked lots of really great questions, like a really cool, sort of inquisitive mind, and obviously talented musically."
A Chinese woman, believed to be the boy's grandmother, also died when a landslip hit the house they were in.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the losses were "deeply shattering" and New Zealand was "heavy with grief".
Excavators have been working on moving piles of rubble while support workers on foot point out the next spot for them to dig. Photo: Calvin Samuel / RNZ
Mt Maunganui
Firefighters and police searched Beachside Holiday Park through the night, while families waited nearby for news of their loved ones.
Kate, who was in an apartment near the slip, said she could hear the crews working.
"They had spotlights on, so the whole side of the mountain was pretty bright, you could hear sort of people obviously working all night... they were there all night," she said. "The families that must be waiting, it must be horrific for them."
Robyn Leech said the huge of scale of the slip felt "unreal" - she had seen four diggers working at the scene on Friday morning.
Emergency workers close a road following the landslide. Photo: DJ Mills
Rachel and Brooke Baldwin came to the cordon near the campsite on Friday with several trays of muffins to feed emergency services and the locals who had gathered.
The disaster had left them shocked, and baking was how they knew they could help.
"We're not professionals in terms of surveying the land, or you know, testing the earthworks, we can't help physically but what we can do is bake and we can show out appreciation and our gratitude for the people all over New Zealand that are coming to Mt Maunganui to help our community," she said.
Mother and daughter bakers dropping off muffins at the scene at the landslide. Photo: Alan Gibson / Gibson Images Ltd
Angela Rangi, a Mt Maunganui local, said she visited the hot pools every morning. She had been there the morning of the slip, too, but left before it came down.
Nothing was amiss when she left, she said, but 15 minutes later, she heard a lot of sirens and returned to a disastrous scene.
Local MP Sam Uffindell said it was a sombre day and appeared visibly upset after meeting with families inside the cordon.
Police and fire leaders said it would not be possible or appropriate to discuss the details of anyone rescued or recovered, until identification takes place and families have been informed.
They repeated the message to a media conference on Friday afternoon.
Aassistant national fire commander David Guard at the scene. Photo: Calvin Samuel / RNZ
'Still very much a rescue operation'
"We are in the middle of a rescue operation, and it would be insensitive on families to talk about that openly in the public arena," assistant national fire commander David Guard said.
"We are continuing to treat this as a rescue operation."
Luxon said waiting families were dealing with "high anxiety and deep distress", and the emotions were hitting them all differently.
A man whose relative was among those missing, said she had been running around telling everyone to go before the landslide.
Meanwhile, police were asking anyone with video footage of the slip to send it to them.
As emergency crews swapped shifts and fresh search and rescue staff came in, police district commander Tim Anderson said they were "living in hope" of pulling people out alive from the landslide, as survivors had sometimes been safely rescued in similar circumstances overseas.
*Six people remain unaccounted for, but the whereabouts of three others is also unknown - though it's believed they are tourists and may have already left the area. Police have appealed for video footage anyone has to be uploaded via the police's online portal."
Anyone with information that could help could contact police via the 105 service, referencing Operation Sunbrae.
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