Seventeen people, including pedestrians, lost their lives in a devastating collision between a haulage truck and a minibus taxi in northeastern Zimbabwe on Tuesday morning, according to police reports.
The crash occurred near Chitungwiza, a densely populated satellite town located roughly 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) southeast of Harare, the capital. The scene was described as one of horror and chaos, with wreckage littering the road and emergency teams battling to extract bodies trapped beneath the mangled remains of the vehicles.
Police spokesman Paul Nyathi said the accident occurred when the truck’s driver lost control, causing the vehicle to swerve into oncoming traffic. Before slamming into the minibus, the truck hit two pedestrians walking along the median strip.
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“The truck veered into the opposite lane and collided with the minibus after the driver lost control,” Nyathi stated in an AP report. “Before the impact, the truck struck two pedestrians walking on the ‘island of the road.’”
Of the 17 victims, 15 were passengers inside the minibus who died on the spot. Others sustained injuries and were rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment.
The Herald, Zimbabwe’s state-owned newspaper, painted a grim picture of the aftermath. The vehicle was “completely flattened, with only fragments of its chassis visible from beneath the truck’s undercarriage.”
According to the report, twisted steel and shattered glass covered the roadway, with rescue crews still retrieving bodies at midday, several hours after the early morning crash.
Rosaria Mangoma, mayor of Chitungwiza, described the tragedy as a “disturbing and traumatic” event for the town and urged national authorities to officially classify the incident as a national disaster.
Calling it “one of the most disturbing and traumatic scenes” the town had witnessed, she said the scale of devastation warranted a formal response.
Fatal road crashes involving public transport are a recurring crisis in Zimbabwe. With high-speed driving by minibus and bus operators aiming to complete as many trips as possible, and a network of deteriorating roads, the conditions are ripe for tragedy.
Just five months ago, in February, another head-on crash, this time involving a passenger bus and a truck near Beitbridge, close to the South African border, left 24 people dead.
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According to the national statistics agency, Zimbabwe records a traffic accident approximately every 15 minutes, resulting in an average of five deaths per day, one of the continent’s highest road fatality rates.
