An eight-year-old girl was the sole survivor after a bus carrying 46 people on their way to an Easter weekend pilgrimage in South Africa on Thursday plunged 165 feet from a bridge into a ravine and burst into flames, according to a local department of transportation.
The bus was travelling from Botswana to Moria, a religious pilgrimage site in South Africa’s northeast, when it careered off a bridge winding through the Mmamatlakala mountain pass after the driver “lost control,” the department said in a statement. Forty-five people, including the driver, were killed. The girl was receiving medical attention at a nearby hospital, the Limpopo Province department of transportation in South Africa said in a statement. The child was in serious condition, according to another government statement.“Rescue operations continued until the late hours of Thursday evening, as some bodies were burned beyond recognition, others trapped inside the debris and others scattered on the scene,” the transportation department said.
President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa called his counterpart in Botswana, President Mokgweetsi Masisi, to extend his condolences, the president’s office said in a statement released late Thursday.
The crash occurred in a scenic, mountainous area of winding roads and sweeping vistas about three and a half hours north of Johannesburg.
The road on a high overpass bent sharply over a ravine flanked on both sides by rocky, tree-covered slopes.
(The New York Times)
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