Fifteen people died when a truck transporting liquor ploughed into a crowd of people standing alongside the road collecting their pensions
Fifteen people died when a truck transporting liquor ploughed into a crowd of people standing alongside the road collecting their pensions.
Pensioners and vendors, including a six-month-old baby, were mown down as the truck lost control while trying to overtake another truck at Tugela Ferry en route from Greytown. Pensioners were queueing to collect their pensions from the mobile unit, while others were making purchases from the vendors positioned alongside the road.
KwaZulu-Natal’s head of transport, Kwazi Mbanjwa, spoke to families at the scene and assured them the department would do all it could to help them.
Together with the Road Accident Fund, the department planned to donate R10 000 to families who had lost loved ones and to the injured for their hospital bills.
Tugela Ferry police Captain Bheki Mlambo said the truck driver said his brakes had failed when he was overtaking the other truck. His truck swerved on to the side of the road, struck the vendors and patrons and then slammed into a van carrying oranges before crashing into a stationary car.
It has since been confirmed by Senior Superintendent Upton that the driver’s blood tests had come back reflecting alcohol in his system. He will appear in the Tugela Ferry magistrate’s court on Tuesday on charges of drunken driving, reckless driving and 15 counts of culpable homicide.
