Tourist crash victims' families informed

Relatives of two Swedish tourists who died in a car crash in Northland have been told of the tragedy.

The two young women, both aged 20, died when they lost control of their car on the northern side of the Brynderwyn Hills, south of Whangarei on Saturday at 1.20pm.

Their car crossed the centre line and hit a north bound car, killing the two women and slightly injuring the driver and front seat passenger of the north bound car.

Senior Constable Martin Geddes of Waipu said the names of the women would not be released until they had been formally identified.

"We're reasonably sure we know who they are. But we are waiting on documents and various items of paperwork to arrive from Sweden before we can proceed.

"We are aware of some friends of the women who are travelling in New Zealand at the moment, so we are trying to locate them to help identify the women, as it is unclear whether their family will be coming out from Sweden.

"Otherwise we will do a police identification using dental records and scanned photographs sent from Sweden," Mr Geddes said.

He added the area was notorious for accidents, and sometimes police were called there two or three times a day.

"When it rains after a dry period, we fully expect there will be accidents mainly because people do not lower their speed on corners in wet conditions," Mr Geddes said.

Whangarei Sergeant Chris Goodall said police contacted the relatives of the two women through Swedish authorities in Australia.

He said the women had just arrived in the country and were driving a rental car when they crashed.

The road was three lanes wide but there was a tendency for people to "fall off" and to lose concentration.

It was the third fatal accident in the area in two days. On Friday a man died when his car and a truck collided on State Highway 1 near the Waipu turnoff, about 30km north of the Brynderwyn Hills.

He was Robert Watene, 22, of Whangarei.

And on Saturday at 10.40am, the driver of a Mitsubishi Diamonte heading north near Kaiwaka lost control and spun across the centre line, colliding with a Nissan stationwagon heading south. Nobody was killed but two people in each vehicle were taken to Whangarei Hospital with serious injuries.

- NZPA