A vehicle traveling at more than 150 km/h left the road on Great South Road at 10:15 p.m. Sunday night and slammed into a building in the suburb of Takanini, south of Auckland, killing all three occupants, police said on Monday.
Emergency services responded to the scene on the evening of Sunday and found the vehicle wrecked against the side of a restaurant. All three passengers were pronounced dead at the scene, the police statement said.
The statement noted that no people inside the building suffered any injuries. An investigation into the circumstances of the collision is underway, police added.
Xinhua reported that the vehicle was believed to have been traveling at more than 150 km/h at the time it left the road and struck the structure. According to the report, the car tore through the front of a BurgerFuel restaurant, a detail also mentioned by Radio New Zealand.
1News described the incident as a “tragic” event, noting that the crash occurred overnight and confirming the three fatalities, but the page is now unavailable. The outlet had earlier reported the vehicle had crashed into a BurgerFuel restaurant in the same area.
Newswire.co.nz, a local news source, confirmed that the vehicle left Great South Road in Takanini and smashed into a BurgerFuel restaurant late on Sunday night, resulting in the deaths of the three passengers.
The police statement and the reports from Xinhua, Radio New Zealand and local news outlets all agree that the vehicle, travelling at a speed exceeding 150 km/h, left the carriageway and struck a building that housed restaurant premises, with no casualties on the inside. Investigators are focusing on the high speed and the circumstances that caused the vehicle to leave the road.