Eastern Cape emergency workers struggled to clear a scene of carnage on Tuesday after a runaway truck ploughed through a taxi rank in the town of Flagstaff, instantly killing four and injuring 10 others, two critically.
Sizwe Kupelo, Eastern Cape health department spokesperson, said details are sketchy, but it appears the articulated truck was speeding through the town centre when it lost control.
”It smashed through the local Shoprite and Boxer Cash and Carry buildings, three buses, a police van and welfare vehicle, four bakkies and a kombi used as a taxi [before coming to a standstill],” he said.
Kupelo said the two critically injured would be airlifted by helicopter to the Nelson Mandela hospital in Umtata.
The dead include three women and one man.
The less critically injured were transferred to the nearby Holy Cross hospital.
Kupelo said the driver of the truck could not be located.
Meanwhile, a traffic officer on the scene, Bheki Nkosi, described the scene as a disaster.
”It is a bad scene here … the truck is overturned. There is a lot of blood, lots of people to look what is happening.” — Sapa