The 20-year-old woman injured in a fiery crash in Te Puna remains in a stable condition in Tauranga Hospital's Intensive Care Unit.
She and her uncle were in a car which was in a collision with a minivan on State Highway 2 near Te Puna on Saturday night.
Tevunga Vaea, 71, her daughter Louina Vaea, 45, and daughter-in-law Takua Vaea, 32, died in the crash. The women were travelling in the van with six other relatives and were heading to Tauranga to spend time with a relative for Mother's Day.
The vehicles caught fire after they collided on State Highway 2, between Whakamarama and Te Puna.
They were going to Tauranga for Mother's Day ... because one of my brothers is there," Auckland man Maloni Vaea told the Herald.
Speaking last night from his mother's home in Onehunga, where family and friends were gathering to grieve, an exhausted Mr Vaea said he had not slept since hearing the news on Saturday night. He said he felt like he had to be the strong one when people arrived at the house "crying and crying".
He described his mother, sister and sister-in-law as wonderful and lovely people.
The six other relatives in the van - two girls aged 2 and 15, two women aged 20 and 57, and two men aged 29 and 41 - were treated and discharged from Tauranga Hospital, as was the passenger of the car - 35-year-old Sam O'Brien.
