Fatal truck crash heard kilometre away

Police sort through the wreckage after yesterday's fatal, head-on collision between two trucks at Otakiri. Picture / Alan Gibson

A truck driver died and another was critically injured in a crash between two trucks that Bay of Plenty police describe as among the worst they have seen.

The force of the head-on collision shook nearby buildings, and was heard a kilometre away.

Witnesses said the trucks flew into the air before crashing to the ground in a cloud of dust and rubble.

The drivers had not been named last night, but police said the man who died was in his early 60s and was from the eastern Bay of Plenty.

The injured man was 26 and from the same area.

One of the trucks had a full load of logs, and the other was carrying coal.

The accident happened at an intersection near Edgecumbe at 11.45am yesterday.

Police said the logging truck driver appeared to have lost control.

The driver of the coal truck, which was travelling south, was killed instantly, and the logging truck driver was flung on to the road.

He was flown to Tauranga Hospital after nearby residents found him semi-conscious.

He was to be transferred to Auckland Hospital last night.

Children at Otakiri School, about 100m from the intersection of Awaiti South and Otakiri Rds, saw the crash.

"It sounded like thunder, like someone had dropped a bomb there," said Tiffany Coffin, 13, who was in the school library and ran to the door when she heard the noise.

"I saw these two trucks going up like that," she said, gesturing with both hands coming together, "and they flipped and then ... heaps of dust."

Teacher aide Sue Morton said her friend heard the noise at her house a kilometre away.

Nearby residents, including three people trained in first aid, ran to the scene and tended to the injured driver until Tauranga's Trustpower TECT Rescue Helicopter arrived.

The helicopter landed at the school, where pupils were kept inside for the rest of the day.

The truck cabs were flattened, and the trailer of the coal truck flipped, crashing into a fence bordering a house.

The logging truck ended facing in the opposite direction to which it had been travelling, and the two sections of its trailer were severed, one landing upside down and the other in a deep drain.

Coal, logs and debris were strewn across Awaiti South Rd, a 100km/h zone used by trucks travelling between Tauranga and Kawerau.

It was closed for almost seven hours after cranes, diggers and other heavy lifting equipment were brought in for the clean-up.

Senior Sergeant Bruce Jenkins, of Whakatane, said: "It would appear that as the logging truck has approached [the intersection] it's lost control. The trailer unit has tipped over and somehow collected the coal truck coming the other way.

"It's probably one of the worst impacts we've seen."