Bus accident in South Africa injures 80

Bus accident in South Africa injures 80

2011-07-18 13:16:10 GMT+7 (ICT)

AMANZIMTOTI, SOUTH AFRICA (BNO NEWS) -- Eighty people were injured on early Monday morning when a passenger bus overturned on a highway in eastern South Africa, emergency officials said.

The accident happened at around 2 a.m. local time when a passenger bus traveling from Queenstown in Eastern Cape Province to Durban in KwaZulu-Natal overturned on the N2 highway near Amanzimtoti, a coastal town near Durban. The bus was carrying a total of 81 people.

"Netcare 911 and the provincial paramedics arrived at the scene to find the crumpled remains of the bus on its side in the center medium of the highway," said Chris Botha, a spokesman for Netcare 911. "The injured passengers were scattered over a large area with three still trapped in the wreckage."

Botha said there were a total of 80 patients, eleven of whom were seriously injured. Sixty-nine others escaped with mostly minor injuries, while one person came out of the accident uninjured. "Medics stabilized the injured on scene before transporting them to various hospitals for the care that they required," the spokesman said.

The cause of the accident was not immediately known.

Roads in South Africa are considered to be among the world's most dangerous, with around 13,000 people killed every year. Many accidents are attributed to reckless driving and poor maintenance of buses and taxis.

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