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South Africa, Germany Mourn Bus Crash Victims

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

CAPE TOWN/BERLIN (Worthy News) – While thousands of kilometers (miles) apart, South Africa and Germany shared in grief on Good Friday as both investigated bus crashes that killed and injured scores of people, including churchgoers.

The worst crash occurred Thursday in northern South Africa, where a bus carrying worshippers on a long-distance trip from Botswana to an Easter weekend church gathering plunged off a bridge on a mountain pass.

The bus burst into flames as it hit the rocky ground below, killing at least 45 people, authorities said. The only survivor was an 8-year-old child who was receiving medical attention for serious injuries.

The Limpopo provincial government said the bus veered off the Mmamatlakala bridge in northern South Africa and plunged 50 meters (164 feet) into a ravine before bursting into flames.

Search operations were ongoing, the provincial government said, but many bodies were burned beyond recognition and trapped inside the vehicle, while others had been thrown from the bus.

The crash happened near the town of Mokopane, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of the South African capital, Pretoria.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa sent his condolences to the victims’ families, his office said in a statement.

GERMANY CRASH

In Europe, at least four people were killed and more than 40 injured in a motorway crash involving a coach near the east German city of Leipzig, police said.

The FlixBus coach veered to the right on the busy A9 autobahn before falling onto its side, footage showed.

It had left Berlin Wednesday with two drivers and 52 passengers and was on its way to Nuremberg en route to Zurich, Switzerland, the company confirmed.

Officials in the state of Saxony said their “thoughts were with the victims.”

The sole survivor, an eight-year-old girl, was currently being treated in hospital this Easter.

Prosecutors launched an investigation into reports that the two drivers in the bus quarreled with each other before Wednesday’s crash, Worthy News learned.

The 62-year-old man behind the wheel during the crash, who originated from the Czech Republic, may face charges of involuntary manslaughter, prosecutors said.

QUARREL REPORTED

He had been driving for half an hour when the double-decker bus left the six-lane highway for an unknown reason, according to investigators.

One of the passengers said this was “preceded by an argument” with the second driver, a 53-year-old Slovak citizen.

The Public Prosecution Service in Leipzig said that this will be investigated.

There were no indications the driver had been drinking or using drugs, officials said.

Yet Siegfried Brockmann, a German accident investigator, criticized the workload of bus drivers, who, according to current regulations, can drive up to 56 hours weekly.

“Even if you do all this correctly, I think it is over the limit of what is acceptable, even for professional drivers,” Brockmann told Germany’s public broadcaster.