A 47-year-old man is dead after a two-car crash near Nanaimo around 6 p.m. Friday night.

Highway 19 north at Lantzville Road was closed for several hours after a Geo Tracker collided with a black Jeep, while attempting to turn left on the highway. The male driver of the Tracker died at the scene and the male driver of the Jeep was taken to Nanaimo General Hospital with injuries.

Nanaimo RCMP are still investigating what caused the crash but said it had been raining hard that night and the road was wet.

It was the third traffic fatality in two days related to the heavy rain that’s been pounding much of the Island.

On Thursday at 7 a.m., a 55-year-old woman from Port Hardy was killed when the driver of the SUV she was riding in lost control on the wet road and struck a rock face on Highway 19 near Keta Lake just north of Sayward. Two other passengers in the car also sustained injuries.

On Thursday evening in Central Saanich, an elderly woman was struck and killed by a car as she crossed a dark stretch of Mount Newton Cross Road in what police said were torrential downpour conditions.

The rain is expected to persist through next week.