Authorities are expected to release the bodies of the 20 people who died in the crash on the N1 near Prince Albert in the next few days, as relatives start the painful process of identifying their loved ones.
On Wednesday, the relatives of some of the people who died in the accident, which involved two taxis smashing into a truck on the N1 84km north of Laingsburg, had started arriving at the Oudtshoorn pathology laboratories to identify their next of kin.
However, some of the victims were so badly disfigured they were not identifiable, according to provincial Health spokeswoman Faiza Steyn.
“Some of the bodies were so bad… that some of the autopsies could not be completed,” she said.
She confirmed 44 people were involved in the accident, 20 had been declared dead, including two toddlers, and one of the taxi drivers, who was later identified as Ruben Mboxela.
A further 17 people were transported to hospitals, two of whom had serious injuries.
One of the seriously injured passengers was taken to George Hospital and another to Tygerberg Hospital to be treated for head injuries.
On Wednesday Tygerberg’s Leticia Pienaar said the injured woman was in a “stable but critical” condition.
Pienaar said the woman had not yet been identified and her age was still unknown.
She said the woman, who was on a ventilator, had undergone an operation and was waiting to be transferred to a ward.
Of the 17 injured, apart from the two critically injured patients, Steyn said she could confirm that two people had been discharged from hospital and some of the others were being treated for lesser injuries at Laingsburg and Prince Albert hospitals.
Steyn said they had not been given a passenger list.
Provincial police spokes-man captain Malcolm Pojie confirmed that police had opened a case of culpable homicide for investigation but no one had been arrested yet.
“Forensic pathologists have only started with the autopsies today (Wednesday) and while some of the family members have started arriving in Oudtshoorn to identify the bodies, we will not release any of the names until we have positively identified the deceased,” Pojie said.
Last night, Bonnie Bokwe, the owner of the taxi which Mboxela was driving, said they had spoken to the families of those who were in the taxis.
He said that they had received support from the Eastern Cape Transport Department and Arrive Alive.
“We were informed that forensic pathologists have said that the bodies will be ready by Friday, so the families will be able to make arrangements for burials,” he said.
Bokwe, who is in the Eastern Cape, said he would be travelling with some of the families going to Oudtshoorn on Thursday to identify the bodies.
“We were told that they would wait for the outcomes of the court’s decision – the court will have to decide if he is innocent or guilty… so the family’s will have to make their own arrangements.”
Meanwhile, Transport MEC Robin Carlisle said the minibus taxi drivers had been driving recklessly.
“What we know for a fact, is the two drivers must have been aware of each other because they were driving very close to one another and that they were going very fast and that is considered reckless driving.”
Although police have confirmed that no arrests had been made, Carlisle said the surviving driver of one of the taxis was “certainly in trouble”.
CCTV footage from a nearby petrol station shows how two taxis slammed into a stationary articulated truck two seconds apart on Tuesday morning.
It has been reported that the force of the impact of the second taxi slamming into the first was so great that it wedged the first taxi under the truck.
