RESCUE teams are desperately searching for missing children after a horror landslide tore through a tourist campsite in New Zealand.
Officials fear there are no signs of life at the camp with no one recovered from beneath the tonnes of mud as of this morning.
A powerful landslide crashed into the the popular Mount Maunganui Beachside Holiday Park in northern New Zealand on Thursday.
Tonnes of mud and debris swept towards the site at speed as the tourists slept at around 5am.
Nearby hiker Mark Tangney said people were screaming as the landslide smashed into the complex as dozens ran for their lives.
He told the New Zealand Herald: “I could just hear people screaming, so I just parked up and ran to help.
“There were six or eight other guys there on the roof of the toilet block with tools just trying to take the roof off because we could hear people screaming: ‘Help us, help us, get us out of here’.”
Multiple people, including children remain unaccounted for as desperate rescue missions continue despite the dangerous conditions.
Fire and Emergency New Zealand commander William Pike told local broadcaster RNZ that witnesses initially “heard some voices” from the rubble.
But the threat of another landslide hitting so soon after was too great with officials having to call off the rescue missions for some time.
Pike said: “Initially, when the first arriving crews arrived, there were some signs of life, but we actually withdrew our people just to make sure the slip didn’t move any further.”
Parked up caravans, tents and the site’s toilet blocks were in the direct path of the landslide.
The disaster is said to have been caused by record-breaking rainfall in New Zealand’s North Island across the past few days.
Canadian tourist Dion Siluch, 34, was at the site when the landslide hit.
He said: “I was in a massage at [the] mount pools and the whole room started shaking.
“When I walked out, there was a caravan in the pool, and there’s a mudslide that missed me by about 30 feet.
“It was all very confusing. I wasn’t sure if someone had driven off the road and into the pool.
“It took me a while to realise that the mountain had collapsed and had pushed everything into the pool.”
