A blue bus lay on its roof on a steep embankment outside Louis Trichardt, and rescuers worked underneath it by hand. The coach had left the N1 highway on Sunday, 12 October 2025, at around 18:00 local time. It then plunged down the slope of a mountain pass in Limpopo province, roughly 400 kilometers north of Pretoria.
At least 42 people died. Another 49 were hurt.
The government’s breakdown of the dead: seven children, 17 men and 18 women. Among the injured, six were in critical condition and 31 more were in serious condition. Several hospitals took in the wounded, and one badly hurt child was flown out by helicopter. The South African Department of Transport and Community Safety released photographs of police officers and rescue workers combing the wreckage for survivors.
Passengers heading home
The bus was reportedly bound for Zimbabwe. Its passengers were Zimbabwean and Malawian citizens returning home. Officials said condolences went out to both countries for the loss of their people.
What caused the bus to leave the road is not yet known. The Limpopo provincial government said rescue operations ran late into Sunday night, with crews trying to establish what happened and how many people were affected. Rescue services kept coordinating with one another as that count was still being pinned down.
The timing stung. October is Transport Month in South Africa, when the government puts extra weight on road safety, and the crash came in the middle of it.
A second Limpopo disaster in two years
Limpopo has seen something like this before. In the previous year, a bus crash in the same province killed 45 people. An eight-year-old girl was the only survivor. Most of the passengers on that coach were Botswanan citizens traveling to an Easter gathering in South Africa.
