Survivor of Picton crash that killed seven members of his family speaks about tragedy

A survivor of a horror crash that killed seven members of his family woke up to learn his baby daughter had died in the tragedy.

He passed out again from the shock.

Pedro Clariman was in the front seat of the family's van when it crashed with a truck near Picton on the morning of June 19.

Eight of his family were in the van with him and were travelling home to Pukekohe after the funeral of an elderly aunt in Gore.

Pedro told 1News he was asleep next to his father Paul, who was driving.

Paul and Pedro's mother, Diseree, were both killed, together with Pedro's partner, Amber, and six-month-old daughter Mika.

"When I woke up I didn't have anything to hold except the door beside me," Clariman told 1News.

Pedro paid tribute to his partner and said he was in disbelief over the tragic crash.

"She's very caring, she looks after me too much," he said.

He said he was focused on supporting his brother Luie, who was still recovering in hospital.

"I am still blessed ... my brother survived. I am still thankful," he told 1News.

The collision, which left the van completely destroyed, was the most deadly incident on New Zealand roads since April 2019 when eight people died in a head-on crash near Taupō.

The nine family members in the van had travelled to Dunedin from Auckland in a length-of-the-country road trip - in a Toyota Hiace van - to farewell Paul's aunt in Gore who had recently passed away.

They left Dunedin on Saturday afternoon and stayed overnight with a friend in Christchurch before continuing their journey home, leaving at 2.30am on Sunday so they could make their ferry crossing to the North Island.

Pedro's brother David hadn't gone on the trip because he had to work at the local Pak 'n Save supermarket in Pukekohe and also because he suffered from motion sickness.

"It's just shocking, to happen that fast," David told the Herald in June.

"In a blink of an eye, it's all gone."