Rescue efforts underway after landslides hit NZ

MELBOURNE: Landslides hit a house and a campground in New Zealand on Thursday, leaving at least two dead while emergency crews were trying to rescue others buried in rubble, officials said.

The first hit a house in the community of Welcome Bay on New Zealand’s North Island at 4:50 a.m., police said. Two people escaped the house, and the bodies of two who were trapped inside were recovered hours later, Emergency Management Minister Mark Mitchell said.

Later the same morning, emergency services were called to a second slide at the base of nearby Mount Maunganui. The rubble hit Beachside Holiday Park in a town named after the extinct volcano. Images showed vehicles, travel trailers and an amenities block crushed by debris.

Police Superintendent Tim Anderson said the number of people missing was in the “single figures.”

No survivors or bodies had been recovered by late Thursday from the Mount Maunganui rubble, where dogs were being used to sniff for human victims, Mitchell said.