Twenty-two people have been killed in a smash involving a truck and a minibus taxi on the N4 near Komatipoort in Mpumalanga, South African Broadcasting Corporation radio news reported on Sunday.
The minibus taxi, which was carrying all 22 victims, apparently hit a truck from behind and caught fire. The passengers were trapped inside and burned to death.
The accident took place on the Komatipoort N4-Coppersdal intersection.
Police spokesperson Nicholas Ntiwane said the truck was trying to make a turn to the right when it was hit from behind.
Ntiwane said the driver of the minibus, who is suspected to have been travelling at high speed, apparently failed to stop.
The 22 bodies have been taken to the Tonga Hospital mortuary.
KwaZulu-Natal
In KwaZulu-Natal, thirteen people died in two separate collisions, the provincial transport department said on Sunday.
At 7am on Sunday, a minibus driver and two passengers were killed when the driver lost control of his vehicle outside Pietermaritzburg, said departmental spokesperson Colin Govender. The minibus veered off the road along the R33 New Greytown Road outside Pietermaritzburg.
On Saturday night, 10 people died and 22 were injured when two bakkies and a minibus taxi collided along the R61 Southbroom road on the South Coast.
”Early investigations indicate that a tyre burst on a bakkie, causing the driver to lose control, first colliding into another bakkie and then head-on into a minibus taxi,” said Govender.
Six people from the bakkie and two from the taxi died at the scene. Another minibus passenger died on the way to hospital and another in hospital.
Govender said provincial transport minister Bheki Cele as well as other transport department officials would visit the accident scenes and survivors on Sunday morning. — Sapa