Seven people died in a bus accident on KwaZulu-Natal’s (KZN) South Coast on Wednesday afternoon, authorities said.
Speaking earlier from the accident scene, Victor Chetty, director of protection services for the Hibiscus Coast, said six people had died at the accident in Southbroom and eight were critically injured.
Netcare 911 spokesperson Chris Botha said the seventh person had died in hospital.
The bus overturned on the R620 near the Riverbend Crocodile Farm at about 8.30am.
Police spokesperson Superintendent Zandra Hechter, who was at the accident scene, said the bus came around a corner when the driver lost control.
The bus then went down an embankment, before ploughing into a banana plantation and eventually rolling onto its side.
Hechter said the bus driver was uninjured and was being questioned by police. He suffered minor injuries.
”I think almost everyone who was on the bus was injured,” she said.
The exact number of injured was not immediately known, but it is believed to be over 60 people.
Three helicopters, including a South African Air Force Oryx helicopter, flew to the accident scene to help with evacuating people, and the police’s search-and-rescue units from both Durban and Pietermaritzburg had been deployed to assist.
Ambulances from as far afield as Scottburgh — about 120km from the accident — were summoned to the scene.
Botha said: ”It was amazing. People just flooded to the scene to see how they could help. Even off-duty personnel from all the rescue services responded. Everybody just pulled together.”
KwaZulu-Natal’s provincial minister of transport, Bheki Cele, released a statement on Wednesday afternoon expressing his shock and sending condolences to the bereaved families.
”The number of accidents involving public transport, particularly buses in KwaZulu-Natal in the past week, has been extremely alarming and disturbing. At least 23 people have been killed in four separate accidents, of which three of them involved buses.”
The accident is the second major bus accident on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast to take place this week.
On Monday seven people, including three firemen, were killed when a fire engine collided with a bus in Port Shepstone.
Both buses were operated by private company KwaZulu-Transport (KZT).
KZT group manager Paul Bangtu said: ”It is very unfortunate; we don’t have a very high record of such incidents.”
The cause of the accident was still being investigated but early indications were that the bus had suffered a tyre blow-out.
Company representatives from the KZT Port Shepstone depot were at the accident scene in Southbroom. — Sapa