{"id":255046,"date":"2026-01-28T01:21:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T01:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/255046\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T01:21:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T01:21:10","slug":"chiefs-and-drua-players-pay-respects-at-mt-maunganui-tragedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/255046\/","title":{"rendered":"Chiefs and Drua players pay respects at Mt Maunganui tragedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Chiefs and Fijian Drua rugby teams have come together at Mt Maunganui to pay their respects to the region and people affected by the recent landslide tragedy.<\/p>\n

The two teams, who play a Super Rugby Pacific pre-season match at Blake Park, Mt Maunganui, on Friday afternoon, gathered on the beach in front of the Mount and sang a karakia.<\/p>\n

Six people died after a landslide at the Mount Maunganui Beachside Holiday Park<\/a>, smashing into campervans, tents, vehicles and an ablution block last Thursday morning.<\/p>\n

The landslide was prompted by constant rain in the area, with many other areas of the North Island also hit by the bad weather.<\/p>\n

In total, nine people have died and one person remained missing.<\/p>\n

Chiefs captain Luke Jacobson said: \u201cWe just wanted to acknowledge what happened here and pay our respects. Obviously, it\u2019s a terrible tragedy. To the people who have lost love ones \u2013 we feel for you.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are plenty of boys here from Bay of Plenty who play here and reside here. It has a special place in their heart \u2026 the Mount holds a big place in all of our hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the karakia the two teams trained alongside each other.<\/p>\n

“Obviously we’re deeply saddened by the horrific incident last week and we’re sending our condolences to the families who lost love ones,” Chiefs and All Blacks first-five\/fullback Damian McKenzie said. <\/p>\n

“To be able to share a moment with the Drua boys on the beach to say a prayer for those who lost their lives was special.”<\/p>\n

There were plans to recognise the campground first responders before the match on Friday, which kicks off at 3pm.<\/p>\n

The Chiefs\u2019 first competition game of the season is against the Blues <\/a>at Eden Park on Saturday, February 14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chiefs and Fijian Drua rugby teams have come together at Mt Maunganui to pay their respects to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17909,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-255046","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-chiefs","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}