Two people are dead and one seriously injured after a crash on SH63 in Wairau Valley, Tasman, overnight.
Shortly after 6pm police responded to the crash where one person had already died.
A police spokesperson said two others were seriously injured, but a second person died not long after.
The third person was flown to Wellington Hospital.
Police are now investigating the fatal crash.
The crash came not long before a single-vehicle crash in Timaru that killed two people.
The two fatal crashes in the South Island bring Aotearoa's summer road toll to eight.
In 2021 the summer road toll reached 16 by the end of the Christmas and New Year period.
