The Free State bus crash has claimed the lives of 12 people, including five children, after a bus overturned on the N1 highway in South Africa’s Free State province in one of the country’s deadliest road disasters this year.
The Free State bus crash happened shortly after 9.30pm on Thursday, about 24 kilometres north of Trompsburg in the direction of Edenburg. The bus was carrying roughly 60 passengers and travelling from Cape Town to Zimbabwe when it overturned and came to rest lying across the highway, completely blocking the road.
Free State health department spokesperson Mondli Mvambi said the death toll in the Free State bus crash had risen to 12, with five children among those confirmed dead. A further 66 passengers were injured and taken to hospitals across the province for treatment. Of those, 57 sustained minor injuries, four were listed as critical and five were classified as serious, according to the health department.
Emergency crews worked through the night to free passengers trapped inside the wreckage. Rescue teams reportedly found one child’s hand still pinned beneath the bus during the early stages of the operation, before extrication efforts freed those trapped inside.
Road Traffic Management Corporation spokesperson Simon Zwane said emergency services responded swiftly to the Free State bus crash once the alarm was raised, and that the injured were transported to nearby medical facilities as triage continued at the scene. Law enforcement officers were deployed to manage traffic and secure the area while paramedics worked.
The N1 was shut between Trompsburg and Edenburg for hours as crews cleared the site of the Free State bus crash. Motorists travelling that stretch were urged by provincial authorities to reduce speed, expect long delays and use alternative routes where possible, with officials directing traffic away from the affected section throughout the night and into Friday morning.
Officials have not yet given a cause for the crash. The Free State health department said further updates would follow as more details became available, and it extended condolences to the families of those killed while wishing a speedy recovery to the injured.
The Free State bus crash is the third fatal bus disaster on South African roads in under a month. A bus travelling from Cape Town to Idutywa in the Eastern Cape overturned near Worcester on 2 July, killing 16 people and injuring 20. A week earlier, a bus transporting migrants being repatriated overturned near Musina in Limpopo close to the Zimbabwean border, killing the driver and injuring 11 passengers.
The frequency of crashes such as the Free State bus crash has renewed scrutiny of long distance bus safety in South Africa, including vehicle roadworthiness, driver fatigue and enforcement along major routes such as the N1 corridor that links Cape Town to destinations as far as Zimbabwe.
Identities of those killed in the latest Free State bus crash have not yet been released, as the health department said next of kin were still being traced and formally notified. Authorities have asked the public to avoid speculating on victims’ identities on social media until families have been informed.
For now, the Free State provincial government has confirmed that emergency operations at the scene have concluded, with recovery and clean up work continuing on the affected stretch of the N1. Further details on the cause of the crash are expected once investigators complete their assessment of the wreckage.
