Truck overturns and closes Swazi roads

MBABANE – Swaziland’s worst road freight accident this year shut down the eastern highway leading to and from Mbabane and exposed the absence of mechanical monitoring of trucks in the country. On Friday, minutes after attempting to phone the SA truck fleet owner who employed him, the driver of a fully loaded horse and trailer bearing perishable dairy products lost control of his vehicle on the steep descending switchbacks of Malagwane Hill. The truck rolled over several times on the decline, damaging the road infrastructure and spilling a consignment of Clover brand yoghurt and milk products before bursting into flames. The driver was incinerated and died. The local press reported that the operator of a public phone plaza said the driver failed to get a call back from his employer regarding his vehicle’s mechanical problems, which had prompted him to pull off the highway. He decided to proceed to the Matsapha Industrial Estate. In the immediate aftermath, witnessed by FTW’s Swaziland correspondent, traffic to and from the capital was stalled for most of Friday afternoon. Sections of the highway not scorched were slathered in white and coloured slime through which school children waded to retrieve spilled cargo, heedless of flames and smoke. Swaziland’s deputy prime minister and several cabinet ministers were caught in the traffic jam, and experienced for themselves the need for alternate routes into the capital city. Shortcomings of truck inspections were also evidenced. No working weigh station exists in the country, and a regimen of vehicle inspections is lacking.