Loving family wiped out by crash is laid to rest

The smiling faces of the Thirumuthy family sat atop flower-laden coffins in Hamilton's Newstead cemetery yesterday, as incense wafted through the air.

Their pictures, anointed with Hindi paint and holy water, were reminders of one of the worst road accidents in New Zealand.

Last week the whole family was wiped out, on State Highway 27, near Morrinsville. Five other people also died. Mother and father Suchitra and Vellore Thirumuthy and their daughters Urmila and Ahalya from Bangalore lost their lives with American couple Gregory and Donna Megas, Thai woman Naphat Juiyin, Frenchman Robert Besse and the New Zealand driver of their tour van, George Gibson.

"Fate is a cruel master," Ashok Darji, president of the New Zealand Indian Cultural Association, told the gathering yesterday.

The Waikato Indian community turned out to pay their respects to the family - people they had never met, but whose coffins they gently touched, placing flowers in front of each picture.

"This life is a like a bubble so only we can pray nobody knows the time of death," said Sikh priest Prithipal Singh.

Indian hymns vibrated around the funeral home as rain fell outside.

The general secretary of the Indian Cultural Association, Madan Jeet Singh, said the community had prayed for Ahalya Thirumuthy, who clung to life for five days in Waikato Hospital before she died early on Tuesday morning.

"Only a few days ago this was a vibrant family who came to this beautiful country to enjoy both the beauty of the nature and enjoy each other's company and the company of their family members here, but the god has made other decisions," Mr Singh said.

Close family friend Rajiv Pandey said the Thirumuthys were a very close family. "They wanted to enjoy life and I just think it was just preordained that god couldn't separate them so the method to take them was to take them together," he said.

Among the mourners sat police officers. One of them, Senior Sergeant Ross Ardern, said police who attended the crash would never drive along that piece of highway again without thinking of the family.