'It was intense, quite bad' - flooding sees more than 100 campers evacuated from Waihi Beach

Christmas campers have been battling to keep themselves and their belongings dry after being pelted with relentless rain overnight at a popular Coromandel Peninsula holiday spot.

Between 100-150 people were evacuated from two holiday parks in the early hours of this morning and were taken to the Waihi Beach RSA. Fire and Emergency NZ helped with the evacuations.

Water has been knee-deep at the Beachaven Top 10 Holiday Park at Waihi Beach, with an emergency siren going off at about 3am this morning.

The first troubles were at the nearby Waihi Beach Top 10 Holiday Resort, where emergency services were called by a guest as a stream rose rapidly.

"When it got about six inches from the top we made the decision, precautionary, to evacuate everybody on the northern side of the park,"  owner Ian Smith told 1 NEWS.

But back at the Beachaven camping ground, water was making its way into tents and covering the ground.

"We decided to go to bed and then we woke up, there was water all over the place, the tent was covered in water," camper Roger Geyer told 1 NEWS while standing in water.

"It was intense, quite bad… we’re deciding what we’re going to do," he said when asked how heavy the rain was.

Another family has chosen to stay.

"We were sleeping and then all of a sudden we heard the alarm, the siren going off and people saying something must’ve gone wrong in the rain,"  Marina Gross told 1 NEWS.

"A guy just came to knock on our door, at about 5, we all had to make our way out."

Evacuated campers took shelter in the Waihi Beach RSA but were cleared to leave a short time later.

Owner Ian Smith says there was about 175mm of rain in the area.

"We’ve probably had it about to knee-high … 500 or 600ml deep through the bottom part of the park … all of those drains are at absolute capacity so it’s got nowhere to go until the tide drops away," he said.

"I think the saddest thing is kids wanted to be away for Christmas Day and Mum and Dad had all the presents in the boot, and they’ve packed the tent up and gone home for another Christmas at home.”