Tragedy struck the quiet coastal suburb of Pāpāmoa, New Zealand, in the early hours of January 22, 2026, when a massive landslide roared down the hillside above Welcome Bay Road, burying homes beneath tons of mud, rock, and uprooted trees. Among the victims were 10-year-old Austen Keith Richardson and his 71-year-old grandmother Yao Fang, known affectionately as Nai Nai. Their deaths in the predawn darkness left a family shattered and a community reeling from one of the most heartbreaking chapters in the region’s recent history.

Austen was a bright, curious boy whose life brimmed with promise. Born in Shanghai, China, he carried both his Chinese heritage and his New Zealand upbringing with equal pride. Fluent in Mandarin, he loved visiting family in China, where he absorbed stories, traditions, and the warmth of extended relatives. Back home in the Bay of Plenty, Austen excelled at Arataki School in Mount Maunganui, where teachers praised his quick mind, especially in mathematics—he delighted in solving complex problems that stumped his classmates. He had recently graduated from primary school and was eagerly looking forward to starting Year 7 at Bethlehem College, dreaming of new challenges and friendships.

Beyond the classroom, Austen was endlessly creative. He spent hours building elaborate Lego structures, tinkering with mechanical toys, and playing the piano with surprising skill for his age. Music filled the house whenever his fingers touched the keys. His greatest passions, though, were adventure and speed. He adored motocross, the thrill of tearing along dirt trails, the roar of the engine, the rush of wind against his face. Pokémon battles occupied many afternoons, where strategy and imagination turned virtual creatures into epic companions. Friends described him as kind, funny, always ready with a smile or a clever joke—the boy everyone wanted on their team.

His relationship with Nai Nai was the heart of his world. Yao Fang had moved to New Zealand shortly after Austen’s birth to be close to her only daughter, Angel, and her growing family. In China she had been a respected architect, designing buildings that balanced beauty and function. As a single mother, she raised Angel with fierce determination and deep love, qualities she passed on to her grandson. In Pāpāmoa, Fang embraced a quieter life: tending a thriving vegetable garden that supplied fresh greens and herbs for family meals, raising chickens that clucked contentedly in the yard, attending services at the Chinese Methodist Church in Greerton where her faith brought her peace and purpose.

Fang and Austen shared an extraordinary bond. She taught him Mandarin phrases, cooked his favorite dishes—steamed dumplings, stir-fried vegetables, sweet red-bean buns—and listened patiently to his endless questions about the world. They gardened together, laughed over silly stories, and watched sunsets over the Pacific. “Austen and his grandmother had an incredibly close relationship—with Austen affectionately calling her Nai Nai,” his parents later wrote. That closeness made the loss doubly devastating: one blow took both the child and the grandmother who had been his second mother.

Only days before the landslide, the family created a memory that now feels unbearably precious. Keith and Angel Richardson took Austen to the Kumeu Classic Car and Hot Rod Festival, where gleaming vintage vehicles and rumbling engines captivated the boy. On the drive home they surprised him with the gift he had dreamed of for months: his very own motocross bike, sourced through a friend. The moment Austen saw it—shiny, powerful, exactly what he wanted—his face lit up with pure joy. He hugged his parents, thanked them over and over, already imagining the trails he would conquer. Photographs from that weekend show a beaming child beside his new bike, Nai Nai smiling proudly in the background. It was the last weekend the family would spend together in happiness.

Then came the rain. A powerful low-pressure system drenched the North Island for days, dumping record amounts of water across the Bay of Plenty. Soil already saturated from previous storms could absorb no more. At around 4:15 a.m. on January 22, the steep hillside above Welcome Bay Road failed catastrophically. A wall of mud and debris surged downward with terrifying speed, sweeping away trees, fences, vehicles, and entire sections of homes. The Richardson house was directly in its path. Emergency services arrived as quickly as hazardous conditions allowed, but the scene was apocalyptic: houses half-buried, power lines down, roads blocked by slurry. Search teams worked through the mud to locate victims. Austen and Fang were found together; both were pronounced dead at the scene.

The landslide was part of a wider disaster. Hours earlier, another slip at the Mount Maunganui Holiday Park had killed five people, including a teenager whose 16th birthday would have fallen that week. In total, the storms and resulting slips claimed multiple lives and displaced dozens of families. Geologists later explained that the combination of prolonged heavy rainfall, steep topography, and clay-rich soils created perfect conditions for rapid failure. Climate scientists noted that such extreme rainfall events are becoming more frequent and intense as global temperatures rise, a pattern New Zealand has felt acutely in recent years.

The community response was immediate and overwhelming. Vigils lit up Tauranga and Pāpāmoa, candles glowing against the rain as hundreds gathered to mourn. Schools flew flags at half-mast. Bethlehem College opened its doors for counseling, even though Austen had not yet walked its halls. The Chinese Methodist Church held services blending Mandarin hymns and English prayers, celebrating Fang’s devotion and her generous spirit. Neighbors organized food drives, offered temporary housing, and helped clear debris from affected properties.

Keith and Angel Richardson released a statement through police that captured both their grief and their gratitude:

“We are absolutely devastated at the loss of our precious son and Angel’s beloved mum. The weekend before the tragedy, we visited the Kumeu Classic Car and Hot Rod Festival before surprising him with his dream motocross bike from a mate on the way home. Austen was a much-loved son, grandson, brother, nephew, cousin and friend. He was a talented pianist, mechanically minded, loved motocross, Pokémon and maths. He was looking forward to starting at Bethlehem College. Yao Fang, known as Nai Nai, was a loving and generous mother, grandmother and friend. She loved gardening and looking after her chickens. We extend our thoughts to all the other affected families and the community at large who have suffered loss and damage from this tragedy. We thank the emergency services who worked in very difficult conditions to recover our loved ones.”

Prime Minister Chris Luxon visited the disaster zones, promising a thorough independent inquiry into the response of local and national authorities. Questions arose about evacuation warnings, land-use planning on unstable slopes, and whether more could have been done to protect residents in known risk areas. Civil Defence maintained that alerts had been issued for heavy rain and potential flooding, but the speed and ferocity of the landslides surprised even seasoned responders.

In the weeks that followed, small gestures kept Austen and Fang’s memory alive. Friends started a fund to support young musicians and motocross riders in Austen’s name. A community garden project took shape, dedicated to Nai Nai’s love of growing things. Classmates at Arataki School planted a tree in the playground where Austen once played. These acts, though modest, offered slivers of comfort in the face of unbearable loss.

Natural disasters remind us how fragile life can be, how quickly joy can turn to sorrow. Yet they also reveal the strength of human connection—the way a family can rally around a grieving mother and father, the way strangers become neighbors in crisis, the way a child’s laughter and a grandmother’s quiet wisdom continue to echo long after they are gone.

Austen Keith Richardson and Yao Fang were taken far too soon, but the love they shared, the weekend of cars and bikes and dreams fulfilled, the piano notes and garden rows they tended together—these endure. In Pāpāmoa, in Tauranga, across New Zealand and beyond, people carry their story forward, determined to honor two lives that shone so brightly, however briefly.