24 killed in bus crash near Cape Town

Twenty four people including two children have died after their double-decker bus crashed on a mountain pass near Cape Town in South Africa.

Rescue teams had to use a crane to lift the bus and cut away bodywork to extract trapped victims Photo: AFP

By Aislinn Laing, Johannesburg

5:09PM GMT 15 Mar 2013

The double-decker bus was carrying around 80 people from a church group in the Cape township of Khayelitsha back from a mass prayer meeting in eastern Mpumalanga province when the driver lost control around 80 miles from The Mother City.

Rescue teams had to use a crane to lift the bus and cut away bodywork to extract victims trapped in the wreckage in the Hex River pass.

"Twenty-three died on the scene and one person on the way to hospital," said Faiza Steyn, Western Cape health spokeswoman, adding that two of the dead were children and an additional 45 injured people were taken to hospital.

Kenny Africa, the head of provincial traffic services for the area, said the bus driver crashed sideways into a mountainside.

"A lot of the passengers were trapped under the bus, we had to use a huge crane to lift the bus to get the passengers out underneath," he said.