Online Reporter
THE death of 12 people aboard a Toyota Quantum kombi with a Best Care Funeral Services of South Africa sticker last Thursday needs both a full investigation and must be followed up by a strong tightening of preventative safety measures.
The kombi was on its way back to South Africa when it was destroyed in an explosion just south of Bulawayo.
Most of those killed and identified came from Bulawayo, although there are still three people who must be identified through DNA testing.
The investigation will, among other issues, have to establish why the South African kombi was carrying Bulawayo passengers and try and work out why at least one of the 11 passengers or the driver was carrying explosives.
Initial reports suggest the kombi caught fire first before exploding, suggesting that the luggage contained inflammables as well as explosives, or that some sort of chemical leak created an explosive mix.
Forensic tests should be able to establish the chemical composition of just what blew up. Army explosive experts have been brought in to beef up the investigation.
In the past, there have been cases of people trying to smuggle explosives from Zimbabwe for resale in South Africa and that is a possibility.
There are also possibilities of some sort of grudge killing, as has happened on aircraft. The list of possibilities could be long, but the police should be able to reach a sound conclusion based on the evidence they collect.
Fortunately, the scene was quickly blocked off with detours put in place so the police and army experts, after first recovering all human remains, have been able to take a hard look at the wreckage, take samples and generally make a good start to their investigation.
As with all such tragedies, we have to take steps to make sure there are no repeats.
For a start, this seems to imply that kombi and bus drivers and crews must have the right, and be ready to take the responsibility, of examining all luggage loaded.
This has worked with airlines and is why no one now is able to successfully smuggle on board a flight any explosives, weapons or anything that could be used as a weapon, with both hold and cabin luggage scanned and searched.
The airline protocols have been changed to make sure that every piece of luggage loaded has a live passenger in the cabin, so there is no unaccompanied luggage.
Similar measures are needed for buses and kombis. If all these public service vehicles going on long intercity or cross-border trips started off at a proper terminus, the searches would be easier, and could be conducted by neutral third parties with some training and expertise in what to look for.
However, we still have buses making intermediate stops to pick up waiting passengers, so a roadside search is required.
This obviously will not affect that large number of urban kombis, where people climb aboard without luggage, and even when they do have a bucket or box or large bag, the crew can ask to take a look inside,a very short delay.
Proper searches should also have the subsidiary benefit of cutting down smuggling and drug running, with the crews being held responsible along with offending passengers so they do their job properly.
Even if they are dubious about smuggling and drug shipments, they can then tell the law enforcement personnel at the next check point.
And, meanwhile, they will have kept the explosives and weapons out of their vehicles.
Zimbabwe has been under the Second Republic tightening up the operational rules for public transport, which has seen at long last a dramatic fall in the number of bus and kombi accidents.
One of the critical reasons for this success was the Government decision to make the owners of buses and kombis equally responsible with their crews for obeying the enforcement of rules.
This stopped the buck passing that had stymied previous attempts and made sure everyone owning or in charge of a bus or kombi was on board and prepared to obey the law.
After some licence suspensions the message got home and owners accepted their responsibility and made sure their crews understood that breaking the rules was a serious disciplinary matter, regardless of whether there was an accident, as well as a criminal matter.
So additions to the rules to include extra safety precautions appear to be quite enforceable.
For the families of the 12, nothing can bring back their relatives and they will mourn for the rest of their lives.
But for the rest of us, there is that glimmer of hope that this is the last time a public service vehicle explodes so that those killed on the way to Esigodini would not have died in vain.
