The recovery operation at the Mt Maunganui landslide continues with police warning it could take days or even weeks.

Recovery teams are using specialist equipment to ensure no further slips and protect worker safety at the slip site.

Police are looking at options for adjusting the cordon around the Mount Maunganui landslide.

Bay of Plenty District Commander Superintendent Tim Anderson told RNZ's Morning Report: "Obviously, whilst our priority and our focus is on bringing those loved ones out, there's other phases within the operation that looks to the business owners that are around there."

Police had met with the council yesterday and will do so again today to discuss what they can do and how far the cordon can be opened up, he said.

Anderson said the recovery team has never worked on a landslide the size and scale of this one.

He said emergency services have a "fair idea" of where the six unaccounted for were when the slip came down, and that they were all staying at the campground.

The process to identify the remains which were removed from the slip has begun, Anderson said.

Business owners within the cordon of the slip operation say they are losing thousands of dollars a day.

Photo / Corey Fleming

Police unsure how many bodies have been recovered

Senior Constable Barry Shepard told Ryan Bridge Today on Herald NOW that police aren't yet able to say how many bodies they've recovered from the Mt Maunganui slip site.

"As you would understand, this has been a huge landslide. There has been a lot of destruction," Shephard said.

"Some of these people were in and around a building. There's thousands and thousands of tonnes of dirt that has absolutely smashed that building and people have been spread throughout that pile of dirt. It's tricky.

"New geotech monitoring equipment had been brought in to help monitor ground conditions and assess risk while they move through the site.

"This site is not safe and it never has been safe," he said.

"We are just using all our skills and knowledge and all the technology to try and make it safe to work there."

'Really disrespectful': People circumventing cordons to walk up Mount Maunganui

People have reportedly been circumventing the cordons to walk up Mount Maunganui, something which Senior Constable Barry Shepherd says is "disrespectful" to the families impacted by the slip tragedy.

Shepherd told Ryan Bridge Today on Herald NOW that access to Mauao remains "out of bounds" until further notice.

"The local iwi has a rāhui on Mount Maunganui at the moment and it is closed. And I imagine it will be closed for quite some time," Shepherd said.

"To those people that might think it's clever to sneak through the cordons or the boundaries, please don't. It's just really disrespectful and we don't need that ... there's a lot of families hurting over this."

Public urged to be aware of AI images circulating of last week's weather event

A lecturer is warning people to be wary of images circulating online claiming to capture the fallout from last week's weather, including the Mount Maunganui slip.

One image shows a scene of destruction with mud and wreckage not actually visible at the slip site.

Victoria University senior lecturer in artificial intelligence, Andrew Lensen, says he's not surprised, because such images are easy to create.

He says people should refer to authoritative sources - such as council websites and traditional media.

The National Emergency Management Agency says it's important the public has accurate information, and its primary channel for sharing that is the media.

- RNZ