A significant reactivation occurred over the weekend of the 22 January 2026 Mauao landslide in Tauranga.
Loyal readers will remember my posts on the Mauao landslide in Mount Maunganui in New Zealand on 22 January 2026, which killed six people. Over the weekend, heavy rainfall caused the landslide to reactivate. Fortunately, in this case there have been no fatalities.
1News has a video of the immediate aftermath of the landslide, shot by a local resident. It includes this still of the immediate aftermath:-
Meanwhile, Charlie Rahiri from Tauranga City Council has posted this video explaining the situation:-
Tauranga City Council reports that there have been three landslides in recent days at the Mauao landslide site. The head scarp has retrogressed about 20 metres and 8,000 m3 of material has moved over a maximum distance of about 100 metres.
It was an interesting choice to film the video directly at the foot of the debris given that the slope is considered to be unstable and the mass is, in the words of the council, “saturated, mobile and fluid“.
The rear scarp of the landslide remains steep and quite tall, so further reactivations of the Mauao landslide cannot be precluded. This is strong evidence that the situation remains very challenging, but also that New Zealand is well versed in terms of managing these risks.
Text © 2026. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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Source: Science – eos
