To date, 42 landslides have been identified on Mauao (Mount Manganui) in New Zealand following the 22 January 2026 rainfall event.
The extreme rainfall event that affected parts of the North Island of New Zealand triggered two fatal landslides, of which the major failure at the Mount Maunganui Beachside Holiday Park on the flanks of Mauao was the most severe. In total, six people were killed in this failure, an unusually high total for a landslide in New Zealand.
As the clear up continues, work is underway to understand the scale of the problem on Mauao (Mount Managanui), the 232 m high lava dome that sits on the edge of the Bay of Plenty. Tauranga City council has a webpage providing updates on its ongoing work at Mauao, which includes an update published today. This highlights that 42 landslides have been identified on the walking tracks of Mauao, twelve of which are considered to be “severe” for which the impacts “generally involve high complexity, higher cost, longer timeframes, and often require staged or multi-disciplinary interventions.”
The Council has released this image showing some of the impacts:-
Landslides on Mauao following the 22 January 2026 rainfall event.
Image from Tauranga City council.
This Planet Labs image, captured with their standard PlanetScope instrument on 15 January 2026, shows Mauao before the landslides:-
Satellite image of Mauao before the 22 January 2026 rainfall event. Image copyright
Planet Labs, used with permission, captured on 15 January 2026.
And here is an image from five days after the 22 January 2026 event:-
Satellite image of Mauao after the 22 January 2026 rainfall event. Image copyright
Planet Labs, used with permission, captured on 27 January 2026.
And here is a slider to allow the two images to be compared:-
Images by Planet Labs:- https://www.planet.com/
The fatal landslide occurred on the eastern side of Mauao just below the 3 o’clock position – this is clearly visible. But other landslides can be seen on the eastern side at the end of the beach and further to the north, and on the southwestern side too. In some cases, the impact of the landslides on the walking tracks is clear.
Resolving these landslides will be time consuming and expensive, yet another burden on a large country with a comparatively small population. Tom Robinson of the University of Canterbury has a very nice article about the impact of landslides on New Zealand, noting that they have claimed 1,800 lives over the last two centuries, twice the number killed by volcanoes and earthquakes combined. As extreme rainfall events increase in frequency and severity, the challenges for New Zealands are intensifying.
Acknowledgement
Many thanks to the wonderful people at Planet Labs for providing access to the satellite imagery.
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