A hero who lost her life

Lisa Maclen­nan woke up campers before the deadly land­slide, and urged them to evac­u­ate

A Mor­rins­ville teacher has been cred­ited as the hero who saved lives by urging other campers to evac­u­ate before the deadly land­slide hit Mt Maunganui Beach­side Hol­i­day Park.

Waikato man Lance McFar­lane said Lisa Maclen­nan woke him and his daugh­ter from their tent early on Thursday morn­ing, about 4.30am, to warn them about slips.

“She actu­ally woke us up and asked if we were OK. I just said ‘yeah, no, we’re OK’. We didn’t know, me and my daugh­ter, we didn’t know any­thing, we didn’t hear any­thing until she woke us up.”

The slip scene on Sat­urday. Police said that recov­ery efforts were on pause because geo­tech­nical engin­eers had spot­ted a large crack on the left side of the hill­side.

The search for those who were caught in the land­slide – includ­ing Maclen­nan con­tin­ued over the week­end.

However, police announced mid­Sunday they’d had to stop due to con­cerns another slip could be to come.

MacLen­nan, 50, was a Lit­er­acy Centre tutor at Mor­rins­ville Inter­me­di­ate School and a tal­en­ted cos­tume maker.

McFar­lane, the camper, said she was stay­ing in the site next to them and had woken up after a small slip had pushed her cara­van for­ward.

“She’s done a very good job of get­ting people to move and mak­ing them aware.

“She was warn­ing every­one that there was slips, [say­ing] I recom­mend you move because she felt guilty if she didn’t tell them.”

They imme­di­ately got up, and while they were shift­ing their gear they could see other slips mov­ing.

McFar­lane said she told him she had been con­tact­ing offi­cials to make them aware of the slip.

After being woken up by Maclen­nan, he and his daugh­ter had packed up and were wait­ing for the camp’s office to give them a refund when the deadly land­slide hit at 9.30am.

He left his ute in front of the com­plex to go for a walk with his daugh­ter in the mean­time, and they got about 10 metres when the slip happened.

“I just heard the noise and I just looked up and I just said, ‘run’, and we just ran.”

Since the slip, his pri­or­ity had been his daugh­ter’s safety and get­ting her away from the scene of the tragedy.

Police announced yes­ter­day that recov­ery efforts were on pause because geo­tech­nical engin­eers had spot­ted a large crack on the left side of the hill­side.

It would have been “fool­ish” and “neg­li­gent” to con­tinue work,

Bay of Plenty Dis­trict Com­mander Super­in­tend­ent Tim Ander­son told media yes­ter­day after­noon.

He acknow­ledged pulling back was frus­trat­ing for both fam­ily mem­bers and for police staff work­ing on the site.

“We’ve had to do that for the safety of every­one con­cerned.”

Pro­ced­ures had been in place to keep staff safe, includ­ing a risk assess­ment by experts each morn­ing before work star­ted for the day.

And they were com­mit­ted to recov­er­ing the six vic­tims, Ander­son said.

“All of our police staff, the res­cue staff, and every­one is 100% com­mit­ted to bring­ing those loved ones back for these fam­il­ies, and we will remain here until we con­tinue to achieve that aim.”

Fur­ther assess­ments were being done by experts and more advanced and sens­it­ive tech­no­logy was being brought onto the site to aid recov­ery work.

Other people con­firmed miss­ing fol­low­ing the land­slide are Sharon

Mac­can­ico, 15 from Auck­land; Max Furse-Kee, 15 from Auck­land; Susan Knowles, 71, from Rotorua; Måns Bernhardsson, 20, from Sweden; and Jac­qualine Wheeler, 71, from Rotorua.

Taur­anga City Coun­cil has announced that there will be an inde­pend­ent review of the events lead­ing up to the slip.