Pietermaritzburg was reeling in shock yesterday after a freak accident in the city's biggest shopping mall left a 70-year-old woman dead on Monday night.
Some of the late-night shoppers and families who had been out to supper at the Liberty Midlands Mall were returning to their parked cars when they were forced to run for their lives as a truck veered off the road, ripped out a fence surrounding the mall, crashed into six cars and a pedestrian, and slammed into the wall of a bank.
Alice Jogessar had been to supper with a visiting Egyptian friend. She was walking to her friend's rented car when the truck ploughed into her.
"The woman was declared dead on the scene. Another person was treated by paramedics on the scene after a piece of glass flew into his eye," Midlands police spokesman Lieutenant Joey Jeevan said.
The 25-year-old driver and his crew were injured.
"A case of culpable homicide, and of reckless and negligent driving, has been opened," Jeevan said.
An eyewitness, Nadia Essa, described the accident as "horrific".
"It happened in a matter of seconds. I saw the truck hit the fence. I expected it to stop but it just kept going. Everything went silent and time stood still. I saw the truck slam into a woman," she said.
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