KEY POINTS:
A mother and her daughter were killed when their vehicle crashed into a river and sank last night.
They were named today as Tania Ramari Winikerei, 38, and nine-year-old Dayna Mihi Curry.
The woman's husband and son were travelling in another vehicle and witnessed the crash as the family left the remote settlement of Marokopa, 50km west of Otorohanga in the King Country.
The husband raised the alarm and two local divers went to the river in an attempt to rescue the pair.
They retrieved the bodies before police and firefighters arrived just before 7pm.
"The settlement is very remote and emergency services were unable to get to the scene quickly," said Inspector Kerry Watson of the police northern communications centre.
"The vehicle was submerged in water and a local diver recovered two bodies from the river."
The double fatality came at the end of a weekend that claimed six lives on North Island roads.
A Marokopa resident said the woman's car crashed through willow trees before travelling down a bank into the river.
The water level reached the chest of one of the divers when he stood on the roof of the car.
The family had travelled in separate cars to visit relatives in Marokopa and attended the town's "Christmas in the Park" festivities on Friday night.
About 200-300 people turned up for the event in a town that has just 19 pupils enrolled at its school.
The woman who died was born and raised in Marokopa and often visited relatives with her husband, their primary school-aged daughter and older son.
"Families and extended families for miles around rolled up for this special evening we had on Friday night and then they were all just going home to finish off the school term, and this has happened," said a resident, who did not want to be named. "What a way to end a special weekend," she said.
In other weekend road fatalities, a driver died in Tokoroa after a collision between a car and a truck near the intersection of State Highway 1 and Maraetai Rd about 4.30am yesterday.
A US tourist was killed on Saturday and four people injured when a Mitsubishi Diamante and a Honda collided on State Highway 30 about 5km south of Mangakino, southwest of Tokoroa.
The dead woman was a passenger in the back of the Mitsubishi.
A 58-year-old man and a 7-year-old boy travelling in the car were taken to Tokoroa Hospital.
Sergeant Dave Frazer of Taupo said the people in the Mitsubishi were tourists from California.
The people travelling in the Honda, a man and woman, both aged 36, from Otorohanga, were airlifted to Waikato Hospital with serious injuries.
Also on Saturday, a motorcyclist died in Upper Hutt after colliding with an oncoming vehicle on State Highway 2, and a person died when a van left the road and went 100m down a bank at Hunua, 15km east of Papakura.
- Additional reporting NZPA
