It was carnage on the region’s road over the past week, with three separate horror crashes that left three people dead and several injured.

In the first accident, the 37-year-old Mr Edwin Mudau was killed in a head-on collision along the Madombidzha road on Friday, 6 September. The accident happened about 10km outside of Makhado (Louis Trichardt).

Mudau, who was an employee of Steyn Staal in Makhado (Louis Trichardt), was on his way to deliver a consignment of steel in the Madombidzha area. According to information supplied by the police, another vehicle, travelling in the opposite direction and driving in Mudau’s lane, caused the collision.

Mudau was killed instantly. The three passengers, two women and a man, in the second vehicle escaped with minor injuries.

On Saturday, another person was killed and another eight injured in a massive collision involving four vehicles on the N1 south on the railway bridge near Bandelierkop. According to the police, a small truck carrying a load of cabbages was allegedly overtaking another vehicle, causing the drivers of three other vehicles to lose control and swerve off the road. The accident happened around 05:00 and the N1 was closed down for more than an hour to give rescue workers time to clean up the road for traffic.

On Monday evening, another person was killed in a truck accident on the N1 north, close to the Cloud’s End Hotel outside Makhado (Louis Trichardt). The truck, coming from Zambia, was carrying a load of cotton bales. The truck's brakes apparently failed and the driver lost control of the vehicle, upon which the truck swerved off the road and capsized. The driver managed to climb out of the wreck, but his co-driver was crushed to death underneath the cab.

At the time of going to press, the provincial police's communication office was unable to confirm the names of the deceased involved in Saturday and Monday’s accidents.