Knysna bus 'went through barrier'

MickeyD

MickeyD

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Sad, sad, sad. :cry:

A school bus with at least 35 children on board went over a bridge and into a river in Knysna on Wednesday morning, leaving at least 10 dead and many injured.

According to police spokesperson Captain Malcolm Potje, at least 10 bodies have been recovered so far.

Divers are searching for more bodies.

AMS and ER24 are on the scene to rescue the injured.

The bus apparently went into a river in Rheedendal, Knysna.
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Update:
Knysna - A school bus that went into a river in Knysna appeared to “have gone through the barrier” of a bridge and then landed up in the water, ER24 said on Wednesday.

The death toll from the accident now stands at 14.

ER24’s Andre Visser told News24 that divers were still searching the water for victims.

Visser could not say how many how many injured children had been taken to hospital but did say that most of the injured only had minor injuries such as scrapes and bruises and sore necks and backs.
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http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Knysna-bus-went-through-barrier-20110824
 
Wonder what caused the accident. My money is on the bus being in a poor state :(
 
Saw this on the telly tonight - awful news and really sad to hear. Condolences...
 
Heard on radio that it happened on a bend which is known for fatalities and there no barrier to prevent vehicles from going over. There was a local journalist that spoke to 702.
 
That particular corner can be deceiving and actually know someone that plunged a car into the river at the same spot. There are warning signs to reduce speed on either side of the decent to the river. However the river is not more than a few meters wide on the bend and I thought not very deep? so its very sad to hear of the loss of life.

The school bus would have traversed the road twice every day, so I would have imagined the driver knew the road well.
 
peanutville said:
That particular corner can be deceiving and actually know someone that plunged a car into the river at the same spot. There are warning signs to reduce speed on either side of the decent to the river. However the river is not more than a few meters wide on the bend and I thought not very deep? so its very sad to hear of the loss of life.

The school bus would have traversed the road twice every day, so I would have imagined the driver knew the road well.
Click to expand...
Very true, however there had been quite a bot of rain overnight so the stream had swollen substantially.

588693e8b1094ee78e739ec70db297fc.jpg


From this photo you can see then the bus was coming down the hill and just went straight into the river...

240811-Knysna-bus-ec-300x217.jpg
 
Never seen the river that high, literally swallowed the coach! If this had happened in summer there may have been no fatalities & we would never had heard a peep about the coach going off the road.
 
peanutville said:
Never seen the river that high, literally swallowed the coach! If this had happened in summer there may have been no fatalities & we would never had heard a peep about the coach going off the road.
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I was also surprised. Every time I've been through there, it was a trickle...

Really sad.
 
My sister-in-law is a friend of the guy who was first on the scene and dived in to haul kids out of the bus before rescue services got there. The accident was witnessed by a young girl and her gran. The bus had crossed the river and gone 100 or so metres up the other side of the hill heading north towards Rheenendal. It had stopped to collect the little girl - she was the last pickup on the route. The stop is only a few hundred metres from the town of Rheenendal and the school. She'd apparently forgotten something just as she was about to board the bus. She ran back in to her house to grab whatever it was, and her gran apparently watched the bus start rolling backwards. It rolled faster and faster, trying to steer straight in reverse. No idea why he didn't apply brakes (this is where the brake failure theory comes in) or why he didn't manage to find a forward gear, gun the engine, and try to arrest the backwards roll. Anyway, seems neither was possible and he couldn't control the bus by the time it reached the bottom of the hill at the bridge. It just fell off the side of the bridge and into the water. There are no barriers there to go through.

I was told that he struggled to get to the kids inside because of all the school bags floating around inside the bus. And he found 2 of the kids clinging on to the driver. All three were dead.

So it seems we can stop blaming the driver for speeding. But the overloading... I guess that's a matter for the inquiry into the incident.
 
peanutville said:
That particular corner can be deceiving and actually know someone that plunged a car into the river at the same spot. There are warning signs to reduce speed on either side of the decent to the river. However the river is not more than a few meters wide on the bend and I thought not very deep? so its very sad to hear of the loss of life.

The school bus would have traversed the road twice every day, so I would have imagined the driver knew the road well.
Click to expand...
Anyone mind telling me where this corner is? More specifically where in/after knysna.

:edit
nm, Grouter.
 
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