E Cape crash: Toll rises to 13
2003-10-31 10:23
Graaff-Reinet - At least 13 people, including a baby, the driver and the co-driver, were killed in Thursday night's bus crash just outside Graaff-Reinet, police said on Friday.
This was the second serious bus accident in less than a day, Inspector Stefanie Smith said.
The accident occurred just before midnight on Thursday, about 1km outside the Karoo town, on the Graaff-Reinet/Port Elizabeth Road.
The bus, carrying 37 passengers, was on its way to Johannesburg.
Smith said it was difficult to say what caused the crash, but it had apparently been raining when the accident occurred. The road, being close to town, was not particularly dangerous.
Smith was at the local hospital in Graaff-Reinet on Friday morning and said she saw two injured passengers being transferred to the Greenacres and Port Elizabeth hospitals. Both were in a serious condition.
However, because of the ensuing chaos in the Graaff-Reinet hospital, she was not sure of the exact number of injured passengers.
The accident was latest in a series of recent fatal smashes on South African roads.
On Thursday morning 21 people travelling by bus on the N1 in the Laingsburg area, lost their lives.
Four people were killed in a head-on collision on Camps Bay Drive in Cape Town on Thursday morning and in Atlantis, on the Cape West coast, three people were killed in an accident on the N7 early on Thursday.
On Tuesday seven people, including an ambulance driver and five patients, were killed when an ambulance collided with a car on the N12 between Britstown and Victoria West, also in the Karoo.
- SAPA