Tents were crushed and a motorhome was pushed into a thermal pool at the Mount Maunganui campsite on Thursday, January 22 after extraordinary downpours swept away portions of the ground, The Mirror reports.
Emergency crews are scouring through wreckage in hopes of locating survivors.
This is an ongoing incident and you can follow the latest in our live blog down below.
Large scale power outages after rains and flooding
Large scale power outages have been reported on the North Island as a result of heavy rains and flooding.
Radio New Zealand reported that there were around 8,000 people without power on Thursday morning, down from 16,000 who had reported no electricity the previous night.
Man en route to Mount Maunganui heard people screaming for help
Mark Tangney was on his way to Mount Maunganui for a hike.
He told local media outlet New Zealand Herald that he rushed to help those trapped in the campsite when the landslide hit.
He said heard people screaming and headed to a toilet block where people were trapped inside.
"I was one of the first there. 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'," Tangney said.
Emergency management minister compares damage to 'warzone'
Minister of Emergency Management Mark Mitchell said the damage on the East Coast is "like a warzone".
"It's been a very big event for us as a country, really hitting almost our entire eastern seaboard of the North Island," Mitchell told Radio New Zealand.
The Express previously reported that the area experienced two-and-a-half months' worth of rainfall in the 12 hours until 6am.
"In the past 24 hours, from 9am to 9am, 274mm of rain fell in Tauranga, making it the wettest day on record," said Meteorologist Mmthapelo Makgabutlane, the New Zealand Hearald reported. "The records date back to 1910."
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Several people are missing after the landslide and police have said the number of people missing remains in the single figures. Police did not provide exact numbers.
It is believed that some people have checked out of the campground without informing authorities, making it difficult to determine the exact number of people unaccounted for.
At least one child is believed to be among those missing.
Sniffer dogs have been brought in to search through the debris at the site and at least two excavators have been deployed, the BBC reported.
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