JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Sixteen people were killed in a collision between two buses in South Africa’s remote Eastern Cape province on Saturday, the latest in a string of public transport tragedies in the continent’s biggest economy.
SAPA news agency said four people were seriously injured. One of the buses was carrying schoolchildren to an event near the town of Cradock, 700 km (440 miles) south of Johannesburg. It was not known how many of the dead were youngsters.
Even though it is Africa’s wealthiest country, South Africa has a dire road-safety record, with poor driving or unreliable vehicles mostly to blame.
Twenty people were killed when a bus careered off a highway near Johannesburg in June, and 26 died earlier this month when a freight train ploughed into a truck carrying farm workers over a level-crossing.
(Reporting by Ed Cropley; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
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Article source: http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFBRE86K0BY20120721