Two dead and several missing in New Zealand landslides

Two people have died and several are feared buried after landslides in New Zealand’s North Island.

The deaths were reported at Welcome Bay, while rescue workers are still searching through rubble at a different site in a popular campground on Mount Maunganui.

There are no “signs of life”, authorities said, adding that they have a “rough idea” of how many people are missing but are waiting for an exact figure. They provided no other details except that the group includes “at least one young girl”.

The landslides were triggered by heavy rains over the last few days, which led to flooding and power outages across North Island. One minister said the east coast resembled “a war zone”.

A surf club in another part of Mount Maunganui has been evacuated following fears of more landslides.

A state of emergency has been declared in the Bay of Plenty where Mount Maunganui sits, and various parts of the North Island, including Northland, Coromandel, Tairāwhiti and Hauraki.

Several areas reported their wettest days on record on Thursday. Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty, for example, received three months worth of rain within a day, according to local media.

Some 8,000 people were without power as of Thursday morning, Radio New Zealand (RNZ) reported.

The wife of a man who was swept away in the Mahurangi River is holding out hope that he will survive.

“I know his personality is strong, wise,” she told RNZ, adding that he was a fisherman back home in Kiribati and knew how to swim and dive.

The man, 47, was driving to work with their nephew when the car they were in fell into the river.

He had pushed the nephew towards a branch so the nephew could hoist himself onto land; but the older man did not manage get back up himself, according to the report.