{"id":34088,"date":"2017-04-22T12:52:04","date_gmt":"2017-04-22T12:52:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/south-africa-bus-crash-kills-at-least-19-children\/"},"modified":"2017-04-22T12:52:02","modified_gmt":"2017-04-22T12:52:02","slug":"south-africa-bus-crash-kills-at-least-19-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/south-africa-bus-crash-kills-at-least-19-children\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa bus crash ‘kills at least 19 children’"},"content":{"rendered":"

{At least 19 children have been killed in a minibus crash near the South African capital, Pretoria, emergency services and officials say.}<\/p>\n

The children died after the vehicle burst into flames following a collision with a truck just north of the capital.<\/p>\n

There were understood to be both primary and secondary school-aged children on board.<\/p>\n

Panyaza Lesufi, the official responsible for education in Gauteng province, said it was a “dark day”.<\/p>\n

The minibus collided with a truck on the single carriageway R25, between Verena in Mpumalanga and Bronkhorstspruit in Gauteng, having left from Mahlenga High.<\/p>\n

The emergency services rescued seven children before the bus burst into flames.<\/p>\n

“It is believed the driver of minibus underestimated the speed of the truck and collided with him whilst turning,” the Gauteng Education Department said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Police later said the bus driver was also killed in the accident, while the driver of the truck survived.<\/p>\n

Pictures show the minibus on its side, entirely burnt out.<\/p>\n

In a statement, emergency medical service ER24 described arriving at the scene, where firefighters were tackling the flames. A number of children had already been pulled out by “members of the community”, the statement said.<\/p>\n

“Once the flames had been extinguished, paramedics found that approximately 13 children [were] lying trapped inside the vehicle. Unfortunately, nothing could be done for the children and they were declared dead on the scene,” the statement added.<\/p>\n

There seems to be no end in sight to South Africa’s road carnage.<\/p>\n

This latest tragedy comes hot on the heels of a 50% increase of road deaths from last year’s Easter period.<\/p>\n

Authorities keep doing the same thing but expecting a different result.<\/p>\n

In a country with one of the most advanced road networks on the African continent, clearly the problem lies elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Drivers’ behavioural patterns need to be changed through a combination of education and stricter law enforcement regime amongst other factors.<\/p>\n

The transport minister once said “we cannot have a policeman at every intersection. We are not a police state”.<\/p>\n

{{Could that approach be the problem perhaps?}}<\/p>\n

Hopefully this latest tragedy will shock South Africans, both in and outside government, into action which will ultimately bring an end to these unnecessary deaths.<\/p>\n

The African National Congress (ANC) later said that it was “gravely saddened” by the deaths of the school pupils following the “heart-breaking accident” on Friday.
\n“It is a sad day for South Africa,” the statement said, adding that the ANC “extends its deepest condolences to the bereaved families”.<\/p>\n

ER24 and the Gauteng Education Department had earlier reported that a total of 20 people had been killed, with the education department adding that two of the dead were adults.<\/p>\n

“This is a huge loss and we’re deeply pained by the tragic news,” the education department tweeted.<\/p>\n

South Africa has some of the deadliest roads in the world. According to the country’s Road Traffic Management Corporation, there were 13,673 deaths in the 12 months from October 2015 – which equates to more than 37 people dying every day.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/figure>\n

Source:BBC <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{At least 19 children have been killed in a minibus crash near the South African capital, Pretoria, emergency services and officials say.} The children died after the vehicle burst into flames following a collision with a truck just north of the capital. There were understood to be both primary and secondary school-aged children on board. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-34088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34088\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34088"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=34088"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=34088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}