S Africa bus crash kills 45; child the sole survivor

A bus carrying people on a longdistance trip from Botswana to an Easter weekend church gathering in South Africa on Thursday plunged off a bridge on a mountain pass and burst into flames as it hit the rocky ground below, killing at least 45 people, authorities said.

The only survivor was an eightyear-old, who was receiving medical attention for serious injuries.

The Limpopo provincial government said that the bus veered off the Mmamatlakala bridge in northern South Africa and plunged 50m into a ravine before bursting into flames.

Search operations were ongoing, the provincial government said, but many bodies were burned beyond recognition and trapped inside the vehicle, while others had been thrown from the bus.

The crash happened near the town of Mokopane, which is about 200km north of the South African administrative capital, Pretoria.

Hours after the crash, smoke seeped from the mangled, burned wreck underneath the bridge.

Authorities said it appeared that the driver lost control and the bus hit the barriers along the side of the bridge and then went over the edge.

The driver was among those who were killed.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the people on the bus appeared to be all from Botswana and had been on their way to the town of Moria in Limpopo for an Easter weekend pilgrimage that attracts hundreds of thousands of people from South Africa and neighboring countries who follow the Zion Christian Church.

Ramaphosa had telephoned Botswanan President Mokgweetsi Masisi to offer his condolences and said the South African government would do all it can to help, a statement from Ramaphosa’s office said.

Provincial authorities said the bus had a Botswana license plate.

South African Minister of Transport Sindisiwe Chikunga was in Limpopo Province for a road safety campaign and changed plans to visit the crash scene after hearing the “devastating news,” the South African Department of Transport said.

There was an investigation under way into the cause of the crash, Chikunga said.