Truck plunge kills 48 relatives

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- An open truck packed with passengers has crashed down a steep hill in South Africa killing 48 members of the same family.

Police spokesman Malculm Mokomene said the driver lost control of the lorry while traveling on along a dirt road in northeast Mpumalanga province.

The dead, all members of an extended family, were on their way to visit the graves of relatives at a farm near Roosenekal, about 125 miles northeast of Johannesburg.

A further 73 people were injured in the crash, 33 of them seriously, police told reporters.

Mokomene said: "They were going to have a feast and visit the graves of their forefathers.

He said witnesses reported that the driver lost control of the truck as he tried to change gears on a downward slope and that the truck overturned twice as it plunged over the side of the road crushing the driver's cab.

Survivor Petros Cheko told the South African Broadcasting Corporation: "I heard some grinding noises and then the truck rolled over."

Another relative told South Africa TV: "I have lost three of my kids in this accident and I feel very, very bad.

"Others are badly injured and when I go to the hospital, I don't know how many I will see alive."

The driver, who was slightly injured, was charged with breaking a law that bans transporting people in a truck without a canopy, said transport ministry spokesman Mike Mabasa.

The crash takes the death toll on South African roads since December 1 to more than 700 despite the government's "Arrive Alive" road safety campaign.

In his year-end address, President Thabo Mbeki urged South Africans to "reduce radically death and injury on our roads." "All of us have to arrive alive, and that requires that all of us act together to protect the lives of our people," he said.