On Monday, the local police said five people had died in an incident that occurred southeast of Johannesburg on Sunday.
The spokesman for the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Police Department (EMPD), Katlego Mphahlele, said that “the tragedy occurred when a light vehicle fell off a bridge at Germiston, killing five people aged between 18 and 20”.
He added that according to preliminary information, the driver lost control of the vehicle with five other passengers on board, only one of whom escaped with minor injuries.
Mr. Mphahlele noted that the police had opened a culpable homicide case after the car collided with the underside of the road bridge and subsequently caught fire.
The South African authorities have recently sounded the alarm over the resurgence of fatal road accidents in the country. In early June, eleven people were killed and dozens injured in an accident in the Eastern Cape province (southeast).
Last March, sixteen people were killed in a road accident when a taxi collided with a lorry and a school bus in Limpopo province.