The cold concrete floor, lined with a wreath and thin mattress, provided little warmth to soothe the shattered heart of 39-year-old Nonhlanhla Ntshangase in KwaNcube, just outside Pongola in northern KwaZulu-Natal.
Nonhlanhla has been thrown into a living nightmare after she lost three of her children in a horror crash when a coal truck plummeted into a bakkie ferrying her children with 15 others from two primary schools on the N2 between Piet Retief and Pongola on Friday afternoon.
Her twin daughters Minenhle and Nothando, aged six, and son, 10-year-old Thembelihle, died along with 15 other children from the Victorious Independent and Sakhumuzi Primary schools.
The driver of the vehicle and an assistant educator were also fatally injured in the crash, bringing the death toll to 20.
I can only dream that if God gave them more life, one day I would have been buried by my grandchildren.
— Mzi Ntshangase
For Nonhlanhla the burden has been too much to bear.
When TimesLIVE Premium visited the family this week the mother, who turns 40 on Tuesday, was so filled with grief she requested her father speak on her behalf.
But for 68-year-old head of the household Mzi Ntshangase, it was no easier.
His hardened façade soon gave way as he broke down into tears while recalling the memories he shared with his three grandkids.
“I can only dream that if God gave them more life, one day I would have been buried by my grandchildren. God gives and takes away, perhaps in the afterlife they are now angels looking down on us.”
He described Thembelihle as a playful boy who loved soccer and would always be running around the house doing something.
“He was full of life, he would come home from school and immediately take off his school clothes and go to play soccer with the other boys. At his age you can’t do anything but enjoy life.”
As he relished in the glory of his grandson, he admitted he struggled with his twin granddaughters.
“I cannot lie, it is only up until recently that I could differentiate between them. When they were born they were identical, at the time of their death they probably looked identical to others, but to us who knew them, we knew the difference.”
He described the girls as quiet and loving sisters who would never leave each other’s side.
“I couldn’t have one come sit on my lap without the other wanting to as well.”
Ntshangase said when he received the news of the accident he had been with his family burying his brother’s wife who had died in an accident on the same stretch of road a week before.
“A truck lost control and collided with a bakkie that smashed into the vehicle she was in. Can you see now? This is not the first instance, we have been suffering with this road, with these bloody trucks, for years.”
He said pandemonium reigned at the scene of Friday’s crash.
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“We couldn’t do anything, people were screaming, crying, collapsing. We were all pushed to one side and told we could not come near the scene, even though I knew my grandchildren were in that vehicle. Someone told me no-one survived and I felt sick to my stomach.”
That same sickening feeling was felt by 39-year-old Thandi Simelane as she travelled with her brother for more than 400km from Vosloorus in Gauteng to Pongola on Friday.
Thandi’s entire world would fall apart as soon as she set foot at her family homestead at KwaNcube. Her only daughter, five-year-old Thingo Simelane, was among the pupils in that vehicle.
Dark clouds circled over KwaNcube, where the Simelane’s and Ntshangase’s homes are situated, a stone’s throw away from each other.
For Thandi, her little rainbow (the meaning of Thingo) was no more.
She explained how she had plans to take Thingo to Johannesburg in the new year to give her the best education she could.
“I wanted her to get a better education, that is why she was attending a school far from home. I was preparing to take her to Johannesburg with me next year.
“I last saw her in July. She was very bubbly. She loved to sing and dance, she was just full of energy.”
She said she only came to know of her daughter’s fate when she arrived at their homestead on Friday night.
“My brother picked me up from work and said he heard of an accident back home and that we should go home. He didn’t tell me anything, he even took away my phone. I thought perhaps something may have happened to our mother. When I found out it was Thingo I can’t explain the pain I felt at that moment.”
A nurse at Thelle Mogoerane Regional Hospital in Vosloorus, Thandi is used to witnessing death and the pain that follows, but said nothing could have prepared her for the death of her daughter.
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“I saw the video and I can’t understand why the driver of the truck did not swerve the other way and collide with the other truck — the two vehicles are big and the drivers would have survived.”
She said she knew the driver of the bakkie who transported their children.
“He was a well-respected young man from the community. He was 28, I think. It was convenient for me because the school is about 6km down the road and he would pick up and drop off Thingo at the gate. I paid him R350 per month.”
Both families described the volume of trucks passing through the area, claiming there could be more than 20 trucks in a convoy and one truck would still try to overtake.
They called for the banning of trucks or for the government to find an urgent solution to the “death trap”.
The N2 between Piet Retief and Pongola remains closed to coal trucks after outraged community members began turning the trucks away on Saturday after the crash.
The route remains a vital for coal delivery from Middelburg, Mpumalanga, to Richards Bay.
The KZN government says immediate interventions, including erecting speed bumps and increasing traffic law enforcement, are needed to prevent further carnage on the Pongola “road of death”.
Provincial transport MEC Sipho Hlomuka is to meet transport minister Fikile Mbalula this week to discuss the crisis and possible interventions.
On Tuesday Mbalula, who caught flak from the public after he jetted off Qatar on Saturday, tweeted “trucks from road to rail”.
The truck driver, Sibusiso Siyaya, 28, handed himself over to police and made a brief appearance in the Pongola magistrate’s court on Monday.
He faces 20 counts of culpable homicide and intends to apply for bail next week.
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