A walking and running community relay in Rotorua tomorrow, rain or shine, will remember Mount Maunganui and Pāpāmoa landslide victims.

“Twelve hours for Mauao” is on Saturday from 7am to 7pm at Ray Boord Park. The day will begin with a karakia and moment of silence at 6.45am.

On January 22, six people died after a section of Mauao hillside collapsed, sending a landslide into the Mount Maunganui Holiday Park and Mount Hot Pools about 9.30am.

They were 71-year-old Rotorua friends Sue Knowles and Jacqualine Wheeler, Auckland’s Pakūranga College 15-year-old students Sharon Maccanico and Max Furse-Kee, Morrinsville teacher Lisa Maclennan, 50, and Swedish tourist Måns Loke Bernhardsson, 20.

Two people also died when a landslide hit a Pāpāmoa residential property earlier that morning. They were Yao Fang, 71, and her 10-year-old grandson Austen Keith Richardson.

The deaths have prompted several reviews and investigations.

Event organiser Kristy Jacomb said she used to work with Knowles and knowing someone who died in the landslide was “a really helpless, horrible feeling”.

“You just put yourself in the family’s shoes, and you just feel so sad for everyone involved.”

Jacomb said a lot of people felt heavy, sad and helpless.

“I guess creating something like this allows the community to come together.”

Mauao was also special for Jacomb and her family.

Every New Year’s, they woke at 3am to drive to Mount Maunganui and climbed Mauao for the first sunrise of the year - a “whānau ritual”.

She said the event was similar to Relay for Life where someone had to continuously be running, walking or moving on the track for 12 hours.

It would go ahead rain or shine, provided the fields were not closed, she said.

“Otherwise, I’ll have to find a plan B in a carpark or something.”

She had 200 bottles of water, 50 or 60 cookies, and Woolworths was donating a crate of apples and bananas.

The free event was for all ages and fitness levels.

“Whether it’s coming down for one lap ... or wanting to come down for a couple of hours, if they’re not even able to participate but they’re coming down with people that can, come and sit down with us and just have a chat.

“I just feel like it’s just a way that we can remember them and the lives that they’ve touched.”

Megan Wilson is a health and general news reporter for the Bay of Plenty Times and the Rotorua Daily Post. She has been a journalist since 2021.