Four people died on the spot while 11 others were injured when an Intercity cross border coach from Zimbabwe collided head-on with a truck in Louis Trichardt town in South Africa’s Limpopo Province yesterday.
Limpopo police spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Moatshe Ngoepe confirmed the accident.
He said the bus was enroute to Johannesburg.
“We confirm the accident that occurred around 4AM this morning (yesterday) killing four people on the spot and injuring 11 others. All the injured are admitted to Polokwane Provincial hospital. The coach and the truck were travelling along the N1 highway. We are not able to determine the cause of the accident as both drivers died on the spot.
‘‘The other two people who died were passengers in the truck,” said Lieutenant Colonel Ngoepe.
The Intercity coach driver has been identified as Bekezela Stanford Sibanda (35) of Cowdray Park suburb in Bulawayo.
The names of the other three deceased persons who include the truck driver could not be released as their next of kin are yet to be informed.
Sibanda’s family members said yesterday that they were not comfortable speaking to the media.
An Intercity official in Johannesburg, South Africa, Ms Yolanda Vilakazi said she was not sure of the condition of the injured passengers.
“Officials have gone to the hospital to check on the injured passengers. The information that we got in the morning is that we lost a driver on the spot,” she said.
A passenger who survived the accident unscathed, said she was still in shock because the truck went right through the front of the bus. “I have never witnessed such a head on collision in my life. I do not know what really caused the collision because like most passengers, I was asleep. I was woken up by the noise of the impact, only to find half of the truck in the bus,” said the passenger who preferred anonymity.
Meanwhile, Colonel Ngoepe said another accident that killed seven people on the spot had just happened in Makhado town but the identity of the victims could not be immediately established.
“This brings our death toll today to 11, which is bad for a single day. Drivers need to be more careful on the roads, especially during this festive season that we are approaching.”
In January, four people were killed while 29 others were injured when the driver of an Eagleliner cross border coach lost control resulting in the bus overturning near Louis Trichardt.
Last December, a Zimbabwean woman died while eight others were seriously injured when another Zimbabwean cross border coach veered off the road and overturned near Makhado town in Limpopo province. The accident came hardly four months after nine Zimbabweans died on the same road when a commuter omnibus rammed into a stationary Zambian haulage truck near Naboomspruit.
The N1 highway is one of the busiest roads in South Africa as it links the neighbouring country to the rest of Africa.
