SUPPLIED

Kamila Mun took a second job with a poultry transport company to help pay for her children's education.

Kamila Mun started a new job on Sunday night, working alongside her husband at a poultry farm. On Monday morning she was dead.

"We didn't know she had started working with her husband," Mun's sister Lia Leota said. "That's why we're really shocked."

Mun, 51, was working for Alderson Poultry Transport on a farm at Robinsons Rd, Broadfield, southwest of Christchurch. She died after being hit by a forklift about 11.30am on Monday. WorkSafe is investigating the accident.

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Police were called to the Broadfields poultry farm at 11.30am on Monday.

READ MORE: Woman who died at poultry farm named as Christchurch woman Kamila Mun

Mun had taken the work only because her regular job at Southern Seafoods in Hornby was on hold – the factory was closed over winter.

She phoned her father and another sister in Auckland on Sunday afternoon and told them about her new job.

GEORGE HEARD/FAIRFAX NZ

Police collecting evidence at the farm on Robinsons Rd, southwest of Christchurch.

"My dad and sister told her don't go to work, stay home and look after the children," Leota said.

"She said, 'I have to go and try my new job. If the job is hard, I'll stay home and look after the kids. I really need the money for my kids' school.'"

Mun and her husband, Mun Sang Pae, have seven children, aged eight to 25. The family was devastated, Leota said.

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Mun was on her first day at her new job when she was killed at the farm.

"I feel sorry for the children, because they're still young.

"[Her husband] can't say anything, he can't talk to us. He can only sit down and look at Kamila's picture and shake his head."

Leota rushed to Broadfield on Monday when her brother-in-law called to say Mun had been in an accident. When she learned her sister was dead she set about calling her 80-year-old father, a widower, and the rest of Mun's 10 siblings in Auckland, Samoa and Australia.

"When I rang my dad he didn't believe what I was saying. [He] didn't say anything, he just held the phone. I told my dad to give the phone to my sister and she was yelling and crying and howling. She couldn't believe it because they talked to Kamila [on Sunday]."

Once she had spoken to everybody, Leota visited Mun Sang Pae and the children at their home in the Christchurch suburb of Mairehau. They prayed, then went to see Mun's body at Christchurch Hospital.

"We were so shocked when we saw her face. [It was] so damaged all over," Leota said.

"After that we came home. We couldn't sleep all night. We're still thinking about her."

Most of the family would arrive in Christchurch over the weekend, ahead of a family service on Wednesday and funeral at St Bernadette's Catholic Church in Hornby on Thursday.

Mun emigrated from Samoa in 2003 to secure a better future for her family, Leota said.

"She's a good person. She always smiled all the time, when she saw her family, sisters and brothers... She was a hard worker for the family, especially the younger ones. We are really, really hurt."

 - Stuff