ABOUT 16 passengers were injured, some of them critically, when a PCJ Motorways bus travelling from Francistown, Botswana, to Harare veered off the road and overturned a few metres away from Shangani shopping centre early yesterday morning.
JUNIOR MOYO/ BENSON DUBE
According to eyewitnesses, the cross-border bus carrying 56 passengers veered off the road at around 4am and overturned landing on a small bridge and trapping passengers, including the driver.
The bus was speeding and the driver slammed the brakes in an attempt to negotiate a curve resulting in it careering off the road and overturning.
A road maintenance officer Trevor Masvingise told the Southern Eye that some passengers had told him that the driver was occasionally falling asleep along the way.
“The passengers told me that the driver was falling asleep and with my road experience I believe that’s what caused the bus to overturn after he slammed the brakes at the curve as there was no burst tyre,” said Masvingise.
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“I am on the road almost every day and I see these cross-border drivers overspeeding.”
The co-driver Garikai Makhuyana, who was asleep and woke up just before the bus overturned, said he was woken up by the rough movement of the bus.
“I woke up when the bus was swaying from side to side and the trailer unhooked from the bus resulting in the bus overturning on one side of the road while the trailer fell on the other side of the road,” he said.
“The driver sustained serious injuries and was trapped. The injured were later ferried to Gweru Hospital for treatment.”
A villager, Khumbulani Moyo, said they heard a loud noise and rushed to investigate only to find that it was a bus that had overturned.
“When we got to the accident scene, a woman was crying in agony as her arm was trapped under the bus,” he said. “Passengers were coming out of the bus through windows crying.”
Matabeleland South provincial police spokesperson Assistant Inspector Christopher Ngwenya said he was not aware of the accident.
