‘How did she get out alive?’
How did she come out of that bus? It’s hard to explain. I’m hurt that I lost my mom and other people, but I’m also comforted knowing that my child is alive Gaolebale Siako, mother of the sole survivor, Lauryn, left
Long, dark skid marks on the tar, fragments of clothing hanging from trees, a passenger’s cooking stove lying among the charred wreckage.
These were the remnants that bore mute testimony to the bus tragedy that claimed the lives of 45 Easter pilgrims in Limpopo when the Sunday Times visited the scene this week. Amid the unspeakable horror, though, nothing less than a miracle left an eightyear-old girl as the sole survivor.
It was meant to be a joyous Easter celebration at Zion City, Moria, where the annual religious gathering that attracts tens of thousands of pilgrims is being held this weekend for the first time since the Covid lockdown of 2020.
The passengers, members of the St Engenas Zion Christian Church, were excited for the experience of a lifetime. Instead the journey for the 45 souls ended abruptly on Thursday morning when they were crushed and burnt to death as the bus that brought them from Molepolole in Botswana left the road and plunged nearly 50m off the Mmamatlakala Bridge on the R518.
The sole survivor, eight-year-old Lauryn Siako, who was travelling with her grandmother, Onkemetse Siako, 61, was treated in hospital after being flung from the vehicle as it careened through the concrete and steel railing to the depths below.
Her devastated mother Gaolebale Siako told the New York Times from the family’s home in Molepolole that she kept asking herself how her daughter could have survived.
“How did she come out of that bus? It’s hard to explain. I’m hurt that I lost my mom and other people, but I’m also comforted knowing that my child is alive.
“I cry a lot. I’m just worried, how is she right now?”
She and other relatives said they were worried about how the tragedy would affect Lauryn’s mental state. She said she pictured her daughter alone after the crash, and wondered whether she was scared and crying. “I’m asking myself, did she even see what really happened?”
The family said Lauryn and her grandmother had been inseparable and that Lauryn had begged her to take her to Moria.
It is unclear when family members might be able to travel to South Africa to visit her in the hospital, or when Lauryn will be able to return home.
Limpopo health spokesperson Neil Shikwambana said the doctors were pleased with her recovery progress.
“At this rate, we are confident that she will be discharged soon,” he said.
A multidisciplinary team including Interpol and the department of international relations is probing the crash. The team is set to investigate issues, including the state of the
bus, identify the victims and repatriate their bodies to Botswana.
Police spokesperson Brig Athlenda Mathe said yesterday 38 bodies had been found so far. She said postmortems would be conducted on Tuesday.
However, Limpopo MEC for health Dr Phophi Ramathuba said earlier that the number of body bags didn’t translate to the same number of bodies. This was because of the nature of the scene, where bodies and human tissue were scattered among the rocks where the bus had landed before bursting into flames.
Nine bodies had been identified by yesterday.
The disaster marks another dark chapter in South Africa’s poor road-safety record, made worse by a culture of speeding and lawlessness, unroadworthy vehicles and drunk driving.
Transport minister Sindisiwe Chikunga, visiting the scene of the tragedy, said the bus had left a road “winding with sharp bends, hairpin bends, a road that I’d never advise any person who is driving a heavy vehicle such as a bus, such as a truck, to use’’.
President Cyril Ramaphosa and Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi expressed their condolences.
When the Sunday Times visited the scene of the wreckage, the long skid marks on the bridge before the smashed barrier suggested the driver had tried in vain for a considerable time to bring the bus — which was pulling a trailer to a halt.
A jacket and navy blue shawl hang from branches, blood splatters the rocks — who they belonged to nobody may ever know.
What the passengers on their way to a religious gathering said or cried out in their final, terrifying moments, may also never be known.
But the scene in the gorge where the burnt out, mangled shell of the bus lay in a river, and other pieces of clothing hung eerily on tree branches, told of the violent end to the lives of the pilgrims.
The skid marks etched into the tarmac speak to the desperation of the driver’s attempts to save his life and those of his passengers. The broken cement and steel barriers, some hanging by a thread, told of the grim futility of his efforts to steer the bus back onto the road.
Motorists stopped to inspect the scene and take pictures while expressing shock and sympathy for the victims.
“I don’t know what really happened here. But may their souls rest in peace,” said a man travelling with his young son.
Another man, who was close to tears, expressed sympathy for the driver.
“This driver took many lives. I think it’s better that he also didn’t survive because he was never going to have a good life after this. May his soul also rest in peace,” said the man, who had stopped his taxi further up the road.
At the Mokopane Hospital on Good Friday, Botswana’s high commissioner to South Africa, Dr Sanji Monageng, summarised the feeling of despair among her people.
“We are heartbroken. We have witnessed something that we didn’t even dream of witnessing,” she said.
The debris at the crash site revealed intimate details of what the pilgrims carried, including gas stoves to be used for cooking during the weekend of prayer and song at Moria.
Limpopo Emergency Services workers, unsung heroes who had hardly slept since the disaster as they retrieved bodies from the wreckage, carrying them between rocks and trees into pathology vehicles parked under the bridge, gathered for a meal on the back of one of the emergency vehicles.
Monageng said Botswanan and South African officials were working together to deal with the tragedy.
Ramathuba said the process to identify the bodies would be lengthy and did not want to commit to providing a timeline for the process to be completed.
The bus was operated by Trek City Tours, which is owned by a Molepolole businessman. It was only added to the company’s fleet at the start of the year, according to Botswana news website, Pula24. The agency identified it as Mercedes-Benz Atego, a 45-seater, and said its registration plate showed it was registered in Botswana more than 10 years ago. —