MASVINGO – At least six people were killed and over a dozen others injured early Sunday when a Mutare-bound Inter Africa bus was involved in a head-on collision with a 10-tonne truck, witnesses said.
The accident happened at around 5AM, about 15km out of Masvingo on the Bulawayo highway.
Witnesses said a commuter omnibus driving in front of the bus had an improperly secured mattress which fell and in an effort to avoid it, the bus driver had swerved into the lane of the oncoming truck.
Among the dead were the bus driver, his conductor and the truck driver.
Pictures from the scene showed the bus – which was coming from Bulawayo – had suffered extensive front damage. The Nissan UD truck, owned by the Grain Marketing Board, came to rest against a tree.
Dazed passengers, some injured, sat around the bus while a man and a woman surveyed the truck whose dead driver can be seen, his head and right hand hanging out of the window.
Witnesses described seeing six dead bodies. The injured were ferried to Masvingo General Hospital.
