A truck that caught fire last night in a parking area in Chirundu on the Zambian side of the country’s border with Zimbabwe has once again highlighted the danger long-distance drivers face at inefficient boundary crossings on the north-south corridor in and out of the Copper Belt.
The blaze gutted the haulier’s cabin and also spread to a truck parked next to it.
No one was injured in the incident.
Reports that the fire could have been caused when the alcohol content in hand sanitiser came in contact with a candle or other fire source are unconfirmed.
“It’s more likely that the driver in question was cooking in his cab,” said Mike Fitzmaurice, chief executive of the Federation of East and Southern African Road Transport Associations (Fesarta).
“Given the time of night it happened the truck wasn’t running so it couldn’t have been an electrical short or something like that.
“These drivers develop bad habits. They cook, clean and change in their cabs and it’s simply not conducive to good health and hygiene.”
The fact that the drivers are often stuck at border posts where cargo clearing and Covid-19 testing delays can last for days also means they have to overnight in truck parks that are unsafe and not suitable for proper overnight lodging.
“These parks are privately run, have no ablutions and are unfenced.
"Park owners feel nothing about the safety and security of the drivers.
"It’s just a money-making racket.
"On the Zim side of Chirundu some of the parks charge up to $5 a night.
"That’s almost R100 per night.
In photographs Fesarta showed to Freight News, an elephant bull can be seen with his trunk in a trash can in one of the parks.
And although the park in question is relatively empty in the photograph, congestion at Chirundu often causes trucks to jam into supposed safe areas in such a haphazard manner that leaving the area in a hurry would be impossible.
Sometimes anything from 15 to 100 trucks could be found crammed into a park, blocking entrances and posing significant risk to drivers, their rigs, and the cargo they might be carrying in the event of an emergency, Fitzmaurice said.
“If that blaze involved a fuel tanker it could’ve resulted in huge loss of life.
"These parks don’t have paramedics or emergency services.
"If someone sustains 3rd degree burns they would die.”
Fitzmaurice recalled an incident in 2013 when two tankers that collided on the DRC side of the country’s Kasumbalesa border with Zambia caused an inferno that gutted 43 trucks.
The tragedy also resulted in loss of life after fuel spilling from the tankers splashed onto the roadside where drivers were busy cooking food.
Last night’s truck fire once more emphasised that there was too much complacency about the management of border crossings across southern Africa, Fitzmaurice said.
