Police have identified nine more people who died during Sunday’s horrific crash along the Harare-Nyamapanda Highway, bringing to 25 the number of victims who have been identified so far. The other one is yet to be identified.
Chief police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba yesterday said six survivors of the accident were still admitted at Parirenyatwa Hospital.
On Monday, there were 13 who were admitted and seven of them were discharged yesterday.
“As the Zimbabwe Republic Police, we continue to appeal to the motoring public to exercise extreme caution on the roads, avoid speeding and the use of defective vehicles,” Snr Asst Comm Charamba said.
Meanwhile, 17 bodies were on Monday collected for burial by relatives. Most of them were taken to Mutoko.
The bodies were at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals mortuary and by yesterday only nine were still to be collected.
Mutoko East legislator Ricky Mawere yesterday said most of the victims were from his constituency.
He confirmed that the relatives had collected the bodies for burial.
Sunday’s horror crash — which claimed 26 lives and left 45 people injured — was declared a State of Disaster, paving the way for bereaved families to receive State assistance for burial of the victims.
This was disclosed by Acting President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Monday.
Twenty-four of the victims died on the spot, one on the way to hospital and the other at Parirenyatwa Hospital on Monday, bringing the death toll to 26.
The affected families received a coffin, US$200 each and transport from the Government.
Mnangagwa urged road users to exercise extreme caution on the road bearing in mind that public transport should not be a danger to human lives.
The Zupco bus heading for Mutoko and the Pioneer bus travelling to Harare side-swiped along the Harare-Nyamapanda Highway on Sunday morning.
Meanwhile the opposition MDC-T said it joined “the families of the deceased and the entire nation in mourning the tragic and unnecessary loss of life that continues to wreck havoc on the country’s dilapidated highways.”
“Over the years, the Zanu PF regime has been neglecting the country’s roads and highways resulting in the virtual collapse of our tarred road network. As a result of this perennial neglect, there is virtually no tarred road in the whole of Zimbabwe that is not littered with huge and dangerous potholes.
The country’s highways have been converted into death traps on which thousands of commuters lose their lives year in and year out,” the party said.
The party also condemned the Zanu PF regime’s plans to introduce 32 more tollgates in the country’s roads “at a time the Zimbabwe national Roads Authority (ZINARA) is bogged down by chronic mismanagement and unprecedented corruption leading to a massive pilfering of the money that is collected from the country’s existing tollgates.”
Wednesday 21 January 2015
http://nehandaradio.com/2015/01/21/9-crash-victims-identified/
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