Two English tourists are dead after a head-on crash between two rental cars near Mossburn in Northern Southland yesterday.
Senior Sergeant Richard McPhail, of Winton, said a 73-year-old man, believed to have been driving, died at the scene after he and his wife's rented Nissan Sunny collided with two Israeli tourists' Ford Focus on a sweeping bend on State Highway 97, about 3km east of Mossburn about midday.
The man's wife (64) was flown to Southland Hospital, where she died about 4pm.
Police were contacting the English couple's next-of-kin, and had not released their names.
The Israelis were driving toward Mossburn, while the English couple were headed for Five Rivers.
Both rental cars, hired from the same company, were extensively damaged.
Snr Sgt McPhail said the Israeli man and woman, in their 20s, were not seriously hurt and the woman driver was assisting police to investigate the "tragic" crash.
Traffic was diverted to State Highway 6 for several hours.
State Highway 97 reopened about 6pm.
A St John spokeswoman said one of the Israelis was taken to Southland Hospital with moderate injuries.
The other person had minor injuries.
It was the second crash in the area in three days; eight people were taken to Southland Hospital on Monday after the van in which they were travelling crashed down a bank and hit a tree about 10.45am.
The van rolled two or three times before stopping on its side in a paddock near the Mataura River.
All eight people - seven Indian tourists and one Australian citizen - were taken to Southland Hospital.
Senior Sergeant Maggie Windle, of Invercargill, said three children injured in the crash were still in hospital in a stable condition - one in intensive care and two in the children's ward.
The four adults and another child also travelling in the van had been treated and discharged, Ms Windle said.
The serious crash unit is investigating, with speed a likely factor.
• Speed and alcohol were factors in a fatal crash on Waiheke Island on Tuesday, police said.
Willie Paul (47), of Waiheke Island, died when his four-wheel-drive vehicle rolled several times and crashed into a tree while being driven at speed along a gravel track.
• The man killed when his truck crashed and rolled south of Auckland on Tuesday has been named.
He was Steven Arthur McKnight (47), from Massey, Auckland.
• The elderly man who died when he was hit by a bus in south Auckland on Tuesday was Richard Washington Galvan (82), of Greenlane.
• Police have named the 17-year-old youth killed in a car crash near Gisborne.
He was Blair Sainsbury, who was last seen on Sunday night.
His body was found by his father, some metres from his crashed vehicle, which had gone down a bank, on Tuesday.
Police said it appeared the teenager might have survived the crash and wandered off.
• Cyclist Cathryn May Carr (51) died in hospital after her life support was turned off on Monday.
She was critically injured when a car hit her bicycle from behind on Old West Coast Rd, Christchurch, on Saturday.
• Abdullah Aldousari (19), from Kuwait, who was studying in Auckland, died when the vehicle in which he was a passenger, collided with an oncoming vehicle while trying to overtake a truck on the Desert Road on Sunday.
A woman in the other vehicle, Haina Gladys Stewart (48), from Paekakariki, also died.
• In another double fatality on Sunday, Auckland motorcyclist Steven Gorrie (38) was killed in a crash north of Warkworth.
His Japanese pillion passenger is yet to be named.
