Three people died and a woman was seriously injured when a car fleeing police at high speed smashed into a power pole in Gisborne.
The car failed to stop for police about 9:45pm last night and sped off, police said.
Officers followed for about 90 seconds before losing sight of the Mitsubishi car. After talking to a member of the public, they found it crashed into a power pole in the suburb of Elgin.
The dead are two men, aged 27 and 28, and a 24-year-old woman.
A second woman, 25, was thrown from the car and taken to hospital with serious head injuries.
Their identities were not being made public until family members had been informed, police said.
In another crash involving a power pole, one person died and another was taken to hospital with serious injuries early this morning in Auckland. No other vehicles were involved.
Two people were in the car when the crash happened at 5am on Massey Road in Mangere, with one dying at the scene and the other taken to hospital with serious injuries, police said. The road was closed for several hours.
NZN