Fog has been developing in the Mackenzie District for the past two weeks. Photo: RNZ

Three people have been injured in a multi-vehicle crash in the Mackenzie area, near where two tourist buses veered off the road on Thursday.

Police said they received reports of the crash north of Twizel on State Highway 8 just before 10:30am, at the intersection with SH80 (the road to Mount Cook).

Two people were seriously injured and a third person was slightly injured.

The road was closed and motorists were advised to postpone their journey.

It is the latest in a series of serious accidents in the region in recent days. Several Chinese tourists were injured on Thursday when two buses rolled in icy conditions on SH8, just north of today’s crash, and there were further delays on Friday when a semi-trailer truck rolled off the highway, just south of Twizel. No one was injured in that accident.

Parts of inland Canterbury have been hit by freezing cold and fog over the past two weeks, with temperatures often hovering around 0 degrees Celsius for entire days.

According to a weather station on the MetService website, it was 1 degree Celsius in Pukaki at 12.15pm, and on the Mackenzie Country Weather NZ Facebook page, dense fog was again in the area today.