A Fiji-born Christchurch man was driving a group of country music fans to the Gold Guitar Awards festival when their van was hit side-on by a truck on a rural Canterbury road and shunted into a power pole.
stuff.co.nz reports the collision left four people from the van dead, including 31-year-old driver Avinash Avinesh Chand, who was planning on Monday to celebrate his older brother’s birthday.
The driver of the truck was injured, though not badly, and was taken to hospital for treatment.
The crash happened at the intersection of Cochranes and Wakanui roads in Elgin near Ashburton shortly before 10am yesterday.
Police believe the van was driven through the controlled junction, which had stop signs on both sides, in a “moment of carelessness”.
Chand, one of four siblings, was the co-owner of tour company Identity Tours Ltd, and worked with disabled people.
His brother, Visal Chand, told stuff he learned of the incident through another brother who was visited by police at work and who rang him immediately.
Visal described his brother as a “sweet person” who had moved to New Zealand over 10 years ago from Fiji, and was well known among Christchurch's Fijian community.
When he first moved to the country he worked on a dairy farm in Rakaia, and after two years he met a couple who ran a special charter service for a tour company for people with special needs, before ending up with his current tour company.
[Source: stuff.co.nz]
