The continuous spate of fatal road accidents on the public roads within the area of jurisdiction of the Makhado Municipality is fast becoming a major concern.

This comes after another horrific, fatal crash that occurred last Saturday along the Elim/Giyani road in the Waterwal region of the Makhado Municipality. A taxi, fully loaded with 15 passengers en route to Giyani, collided head-on with the Water Affairs truck at Njakanjaka last Saturday morning. According to Insp KC Mabatha, the accident occurred after the taxi lost a rear tyre.

"We heard that when the rear tyre came off, the taxi driver lost control leading the taxi to move towards the oncoming vehicle´s lane and, unfortunately, it crashed into the Water Affairs truck," he said. Mabatha said that 11 passengers died on the spot, while five more people, including the two drivers, survived the crash with injuries. The truck driver was released shortly after admission at Elim Hospital.

Mabatha said that those who died include three women from Zimbabwe, while the remaining victims were from Giyani and Bushbuckridge respectively. He confirmed that a culpable homicide case has been opened.

When Mirror visited the survivors at the Elim Hospital on Wednesday, we failed to conduct interviews with the taxi driver and a passenger as they were still in a critical condition. One of the injured pasengers, a woman from Zimbabwe, was transferred to Mankweng hospital.

A Water Affairs employee who was on the truck when the accident happened, Mr Elias Malan Mafadza, said that his colleague managed to avoid the rear tyre that came off from the taxi, but failed to avoid the out-of-control taxi. "When we saw the tyre, we screamed together and, as if that was not enough, the taxi also came straight to our lane and suddenly collided with our truck," he said.

Mafadza said that he only realised that he had sustained an injury to the knee while sitting on the bench at the Bungeni Health Centre. "The accident made me believe that unroadworthy vehicles are indeed dangerous on the roads," he said.

Mafadza, who is still at Elim hospital, kept on expressing appreciation for the excellent service he is receiving from the health practitioners of Elim hospital throughout the interviews.