Three people have been killed and 14 others seriously injured after their vehicle overturned on the R40 between Hazyview and Marite in Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga. Two died on the scene and one died in hospital.
The injured passengers were taken to the Tintswalo and Matikwane hospitals.
The victims were returning from a funeral service when their bakkie overturned on the busy R40 linking Mpumalanga and Limpopo.
Mpumalanga Community Safety, Security and Liaison MEC, Vusi Shongwe, has called on motorists to be patient on the roads.
“We want to appeal to our people to exercise caution on our roads. You will not expect an accident to happen from the people who are coming from the funeral because those people usually don’t drive faster on the road. We are investigating the cause of that particular accident and we will able to when time goes by understand what the cause of that accident was,” Shongwe says.
Traffic volumes high
Meanwhile, traffic volumes were high on the N4 leading to Maputo in Mozambique on Friday morning. The Lebombo Border Post was relatively quiet compared to previous years.
On average, 10 000 travellers were processed at the border in the past, but this year, just under a thousand travellers were processed on Thursday.
Update on traffic heading to Mozambique:
Border control management has manned a roadblock 7km from the border post to search and clear vehicles. Police, traffic officers and health officials are also monitoring adherence to COVID-19 protocols at the roadblock.
Lebombo Border Post Spokesperson, Colonel Obed Maditsi, says their strategy seems to show results.
“As from 6’oclock before we open the border in the morning, the traffic was of a distance of 4km and we managed to process them and currently, we don’t have traffic anymore. For the rest of the day, we are not going move away we are still going to continue with our process in terms of managing the traffic. In terms of the number travellers that we processed, this the number has drastically reduced,” says Maditsi.
The border closes early due to the 9pm to 4am curfew in Mozambique. Holiday makers hope to make it home before the curfew starts.
“I decided to travel today because I was working yesterday and knocked off late at 12:00, so I thought if I can travel yesterday, maybe I would have problems on the road because Maputo curfew start from 04:00 ending by 09:00 O’clock. So I though I would rather start my journey today. I didn’t experienced any traffic today,” says one traveller.
Traffic officers have been deployed on many of the province’s roads to ensure the safety of motorists.
