Weekend road toll rises to nine

The weekend road toll has climbed to nine as a tangi begins for the six people killed in a single crash on the East Coast on Saturday.

At 4am today the sole occupant of a vehicle died in a crash at Kaiteritahi, Ormond, Gisborne. Police said no other details were known at this stage and the driver's identity would not be released until the family had been contacted.

Last night Damien Gerof, 18, of South Auckland died from injuries received when his car crashed off the Orams Rd bridge over Auckland's Southern Motorway at Manurewa yesterday afternoon. The car smashed through the bridge railing and plunged on to a grass verge below.

St John Ambulance staff took the driver in a critical condition to Middlemore Hospital, but he died about 9pm yesterday.

Meanwhile the residents of the East Coast township of Ruatoria remained in shock today over the deaths of six people, including a two-year-old boy, after a car left State Highway 35 near Ruatoria and smashed into a tree about 6.45am on Saturday.

It was the second multiple crash in just over week -- after nine people died when a tourist minibus crashed into a truck near Morrinsville in the Waikato on May 18.

Police say fog may have been a factor in the latest smash but that none of the six was wearing a seatbelt.

The people killed in the crash were Hamuera Randle Braybrook-Reedy, 2-1/2, Kui Makere May Reedy, 22, who was the driver, Hamuera Boyboy Harrison-Reedy, 22, Toni Marteena Grace, 17, Tania Maraki Reedy, 20, and Heni Walsh, 16.

The funerals are expected to be held on Wednesday.

Gisborne area commander Waata Shepherd said the six people from two families were all from Ruatoria and the nearby Te Puia township.

The accident occurred on a section of State Highway 35 at the intersection with the Hiruharama Road.

The two-door Honda Integra left the road on a bend and demolished the stump of a tree before colliding head on with another tree.

Two other people died on New Zealand roads this weekend in separate incidents, with one of them also on the North Island's East Coast.

The first fatality on weekend roads was at Opiki, near Palmerston North about 7pm on Friday.

Sheryll Lesley Pettigrew, 49 of Palmerston North, was killed when her northbound Honda Civic collided head-on with a truck and trailer.

The truck then hit a house, both bursting into flames.

The truck driver suffered minor injuries and the sole occupant of the house bumps and bruises.

- NZPA