Eight people were burnt beyond recognition and one died on their way to the hospital when two vehicles were involved in a head-on collision between Karino and Mara on the N4 toll road, east of Mbombela in Mpumalanga.
A bakkie which was heading to Malelane and the minibus from Mozambique collided head on in the early hours of Monday morning.
One of the drivers of the vehicles lost control and collided with an oncoming car. Both vehicles caught fire.
“It appears that the driver of one of the vehicles lost control of the vehicle and it verged towards the oncoming traffic and collided with the other car coming to Mbombela. Well on our observation, we have noticed that the other vehicle is a Mozambican registered car which was coming from the Malalane direction; it is possible that it was coming from Mozambique – but that would be confirmed at the later stage when we are finished with investigations,” says Joseph Mabuza from the Mpumalanga Community Safety, Security and Liaison department
The road was closed for five hours and traffic was diverted through the KaMagugu-KaNyamazane road.
Ricardo Massigeu, a witnesses who was in another car from Mozambique, says they were on their way to Gauteng, and they were traveling together from Mozambique in separate cars, but had planned to meet in Johannesburg at a store called Multifload. He says upon crossing the border the group traveling in a minibus taxi saw the accident, and upon investigating recognised the car to be the one their colleagues had been traveling in.
The Department says investigations are underway. Relatives of the victims from Mozambique are yet to be informed.
