Sixteen people have lost their lives in accidents on Australian roads over the Easter long weekend following the death of a person in a fiery crash in Queensland’s far north.

The driver in the latest tragedy died following the two-vehicle smash at Cape Cleveland in Townsville on Monday afternoon. 

It is believed the vehicles were travelling along Carty Road near Goodsell Road at 1.30pm when they collided and burst into flames.

An unknown person in one of the vehicles was declared dead at the scene.

Two people travelling in the other vehicle, an 81-year-old man and a 59-year-old woman, were taken to Townsville University Hospital in a critical condition.

A driver under police guard in hospital will face court after a single-vehicle rollover in Wangaratta in northeastern Victoria. 

He has been charged with culpable driving causing death, dangerous driving causing death and negligent driving causing serious injury, and also issued with a notice of immediate driving ban.

Police say one of his three male passengers died after the car overturned and ploughed into a paddock. The other two were airlifted to hospitals in Melbourne with critical injuries.

The devastating Easter toll began with seven deaths on Good Friday.

They included four adults who were killed in a crash south of Murrumbateman near the ACT-NSW border and a woman in Tasmania who was a passenger in a sedan.

• Four dead after head-on collision on Barton Highway (7 April 2023)

A 26-year-old woman has been charged with causing death by dangerous driving after her Toyota Camry collided with a white MG near Copping, east of Hobart.

Two people were also killed in separate incidents within 24 hours in the Northern Territory, including a man involved in a collision between a motorbike and quad bike on the Finke Track, near Alice Springs.

The 27-year-old quad bike rider died at the scene, while the 24-year-old male motorbike rider has been flown interstate for treatment.

Another man died in the early hours of Saturday in a single-car rollover involving four adults near Hermannsburg, west of the Alice. 

There were three more fatal accidents in regional areas of Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania on Easter Sunday, one of which involved a 16-year-old boy. 

The teenager was killed early on Sunday when a Honda station wagon slammed into a tree about 75km south of Adelaide.

Early investigations into the Tasmanian crash indicate a 29-year-old woman lost control of a Mitsubishi Magna on the East Tamar Highway at Bell Bay on Sunday morning.

A 59-year-old man died in a fatal crash two hours south of Perth when a Mitsubishi Pajero left the Bussell Highway and struck a tree.

On Monday, one person died and another two were critically injured in a head-on crash south of Townsville.

Authorities arrived at Goodsell Rd, Cungulla after a sedan veered onto the other side of the road and collided with a Toyota 4WD.

The driver of the sedan died on impact with the passengers in the 4WD taken to hospital.

By Nick Gibbs, Fraser Barton and Melissa Meehan in Brisbane