Hundreds of onlookers gathered in shock as members of the emergency services, police and traffic officers were going through their paces at the scene of an accident at the Matatshe T-junction, outside Thohoyandou, on Wednesday morning.

People who were inside the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) bus were scattered all over the road surface and the Isuzu bakkie´s driver lay unconscious in his seat. At least eight ambulances were at the scene and traffic officers and police were battling to control the crowd.

However, it took more than 40 minutes for the curious community members to realise that the event was an exercise, or a mock drill, to evaluate the performance of different stakeholders whose services are needed in horror accidents. The bus and damaged bakkie were towed to the scene by a breakdown vehicle for demonstration purposes.

The community services manager of the Vhembe District Municipality, Mr Alex Nemakonde, says mock drills are done once or twice per quarter to find out if officials are playing their respective roles when the need arises. "We usually do not tell our field workers that we are conducting a mock drill. We call unsuspecting ambulance drivers and tell them about the accident while our main idea is to find out if they are responding in time. Unsuspecting police and traffic officers are also called to the scene, to see if they fulfil their responsibilities on time. The injured are then sent to hospital to see if they will be treated accordingly."

Nemakonde added that a report is compiled after each mock drill. "Each department will be evaluated according to its performance at the scene of the accident. We will then recommend what can be done to enhance service delivery to different departments."

The mock drill also fooled Mirror’s journalist, Wilson Dzebu, who rushed to the scene after receiving a call from one of the readers. The caller said: "Mr Dzebu, there is a big accident at Matatshe which left more than 18 people dead. Can you please rush to the scene because this is a national disaster?"

Dzebu said he realized that it was a mock drill after taking more than ten pictures at the scene. "It looked like a real accident and I only realized that it was not a real accident after I had worked on the scene for more than 20 minutes," said Dzebu. Nemakonde added: "We also wanted to evaluate journalists to find out if they visit the accident scenes on time. We are happy that you responded quickly."