"It was the most horrific thing I have ever seen in my life," said Loretta Janse van Rensburg, of the accident on the N2 near the Grahamstown Correctional Centre on Saturday, in which five people were burnt beyond recognition.
"It was the most horrific thing I have ever seen in my life," said Loretta Janse van Rensburg, of the accident on the N2 near the Grahamstown Correctional Centre on Saturday, in which five people were burnt beyond recognition.
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The taxi was travelling towards Grahamstown from Cape Town, when it hit the barrier on the notorious bend at the top of Howieson's Poort Pass.
What Janse van Rensburg and her neighbour, Nanette Els, who live near the turnoff to the jail, saw can only be described as hell.
Just before six that morning, Janse van Resburg said, she heard a loud crash as the vehicle hit the barriers. She ran outside and saw the taxi burst into flames. Els, who came running out a few minutes later, spoke of the horror of seeing people trying to escape the flames, which had completely englufed the vehicle by the time she got there.
"The only reason I knew it was a taxi was because I saw people jumping out," said Els. But worse was to follow. The women said that a few seconds after they had seen people fleeing the burning wreck, they heard an explosion, and then screaming from those trapped inside.
"The screams lasted about 15 seconds, then there was silence," said Els. Four smaller explosions followed, she said. Els also said while the accident and the inferno were truly horrific, ironically smoke and flames may have prevented a major pile-up.
Vehicles travelling from the direction of Port Elizabeth usually sped up the hill and around the bend, and would have had no warning of the disaster were it not for the smoke. "They would have hit the survivors if the vehicle had not been burning," she said.
Grahamstown SAPS spokesperson Captain Mali Govender said the police had received a report of an accident on the N2 four kilometres outside Grahamstown. "The vehicle was travelling from Cape Town to an unknown destination with 18 passengers, including two minors," she said.
Govender said some of the passengers were going to King William's Town, others to Stutterheim. Grahamstown was the destination o one of the passengers. Govender said transport minister Sbu Ndebele had appointed a special task team to help with the investigation. She said at this point the cause of the accident was unknown.
"It appears that the driver lost control of the vehicle, from where it overturned and burst into flames," she said. She said that the driver was still in hospital, but as soon he was discharged, he would be arrested and charged with culpable homicide.
