One dead after tree falls on road

A tree that fell on to a busy highway, crushing a car, left one person dead and two others injured yesterday.

Emergency services were called to State Highway1 south of Waikouaiti, at 12.10pm.

An Otago Daily Times photographer at the scene said the tree had come down at the bottom of the Kilmog, and there was a southbound car upside down in a ditch.

A St John spokesman confirmed two people were taken to Dunedin Hospital with moderate injuries, and police later confirmed a third person had died.

A digger at the scene had removed pieces of the tree from the road.

A witness told Stuff his own vehicle narrowly avoided hitting the tree, and another vehicle came close to being crushed. It had branches under the wheel.

The police serious crash unit was on site and the road was closed while it examined the scene, police said.

A NZ Transport Agency spokeswoman said it undertook tree felling, under traffic management, earlier this week at a separate site about 100m away from where the crash happened.

The two sites were unrelated, she said.

Temporary traffic management was expected to remain in place until an assessment of other trees in vicinity could be completed this morning.