Eight die in horror weekend
A fatal weekend on the roads has seen eight people killed and 22 injured including three in a fiery crash near Tauranga.
Emergency services were called to the scene of the multiple fatality crash at 7.30pm near Te Puna. A car and a van were involved in a head-on collision on State Highway 2 in Te Puna on Saturday evening.
A two-year-old girl escaped the crash with non-life threatening injuries, along with six others, but three Auckland women who were in the van, aged 71, 45 and 32, died at the scene.
In the latest incident, a 19-year old woman was flown to Waikato Hospital in Hamilton after a motorcycle crash left her with serious injuries.
Senior Sergeant Juliet Burgess from the Waikato District Command Centre said the woman was the only person on the motorcycle, which crashed on Kaihere Rd near Ngatea on the Hauraki Plains.
In Manawatu, three people are dead and four hurt after a two-car crash on State Highway 3 at Marton, near Bulls.
A 41-year-old Whanganui woman and her 14-year-old son died at the scene and a third person, a 69-year old Palmerston North woman died in Palmerston North Hospital as a result of her injuries. Four other people were flown to hospital where a three-year-old boy was in a serious but stable condition in the intensive care unit.
In Auckland, a motorcyclist died and the driver of a car was injured in a crash involving four cars and a motorcycle at 9.15pm on Saturday, near Warkworth.
And in the early hours of Saturday morning, a person was killed when the car they were travelling in crashed into a tree in Clevedon, Auckland.
The passenger died at the scene and the driver suffered serious injuries. The incident happened about 3.45am, police said.
A three-car crash at Karaka, south of Auckland, has left a man with serious to critical injuries.