Woman dies after quake brings down tree on her car

By STEVE COOK and JULIET ROWAN

A woman was killed yesterday afternoon when an earthquake sent a 30m tree crashing onto her vehicle near Tauranga.

The accident happened at about 4pm as the woman was travelling along Pyes Pa Road to Rotorua. As the sedan the woman was in drew parallel with a 4WD, a large eucalptus tree fell and crushed both vehicles.

Police said an earthquake had combined with heavy rain to send the tree toppling over.

The woman, aged in her 40s or 50s, was trapped in her car, but died as emergency services attempted to rescue her, Tauranga Fire Service senior station officer Geoff Purcell said.

"The woman was travelling on the route known as the Tauranga-Rotorua Direct Road when the tree came down and a huge branch went straight through the roof," he said.

An eyewitness said the woman was impaled by the branch of the tree.

The male driver of the car and an occupant of the other vehicle were taken to Tauranga Hospital with injuries.

"The tree must have been about 1.2m in diameter and between 25m-30m high," Mr Purcell said.

"It was a freak accident. A four-wheel drive coming in the opposite direction also hit the tree, and a third vehicle hit the four-wheel-drive from behind, but was able to be driven away."

Debris was strewn all over the road and Tauranga council staff were due to spend all of tonight clearing the road so it could be opened in the morning.

There were fears that several other trees could also fall during the night and the council arborist was due at the scene last night.

The Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences (GNS) recorded an earthquake of 4.1 on the Richter scale at 3.57pm, centred 20km east of Rotorua.