The death toll from Tuesday’s accident involving a truck crammed with farmworkers has risen to eight. The news came as the Western Cape government vowed to crack down on the way farmworkers are transported.
The accident happened on the N1 near De Doorns in the Boland, when the truck, reportedly carrying about 70 farmworkers, overturned.
Manager of the Worcester Medi-Clinic Sune Kilian said on Wednesday that one of eight crash victims admitted on Tuesday evening, a woman, died only minutes after being taken to the intensive-care unit.
Of the others, one is still in intensive care and six are ”quite stable” in general wards.
A spokesperson for the state-run Worcester Hospital, Dr Helise Schumann, said there were 11 patients admitted, one of them in intensive care.
Both hospitals were visited on Wednesday by provincial agriculture minister Cobus Dowry and his transport colleague Marius, Fransman. Dowry said in a statement earlier in the day he was ”very concerned” about the lack of policing of farmworker transport by traffic officials.
”I will engage with my colleagues in the Cabinet on the implementation of more stringent measures to protect the lives of farmworkers who have to travel under these conditions,” he said.
Last Friday, 10 farmworkers were killed when a bus taking seasonal workers home plunged down a cliff near Piketberg in the Swartland.
Dowry said he had been attending the memorial service for the Piketberg workers when he received news of the De Doorns accident. He said he understood there were about 70 people standing on the back of the De Doorns truck, which was ”totally unacceptable”.
”It is shocking to think that we have lost yet another group of farmworkers in an accident whilst they were travelling on an open truck which did not meet the required regulations,” he said.
He said though many farmers comply with regulations on transporting workers, incidents like these show a ”total disregard” for workers’ lives.
Although he has the full support of organised agriculture and most farmers, he wants to meet them again on this issue. He said he will ask his department to set up a conference with the agricultural and transport sectors. — Sapa