![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/whatsapp_image_2026-08-01_at_11.06.03.jpeg\")
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\n The bus involved in a crash on the R701 in Smithfield, in the Free State.
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Supplied\/Free State health department<\/p>\n
Four people have been killed and more than 250 injured in three separate bus crashes in the Free State on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n
The crashes, one of which was a multiple-vehicle collision involving three buses, occurred only a day after 10 people were killed in a bus crash on the N1 in the same province.<\/p>\n
Provincial health department spokesperson Mondli Mvambi said the first incident on Saturday occurred at approximately 04:30 on the R701 T-junction in Voortrekker Street, Smithfield, in the Xhariep District.<\/p>\n
A bus overturned, leaving two people critically injured, two seriously injured, and 64 with minor injuries.<\/p>\n
Mvambi said no fatalities were reported.<\/p>\n
The accident scene has since been cleared.<\/p>\n
A second incident took place on the Bethlehem-Reitz Road in the Thabo Mofutsanyana District, involving three buses.<\/p>\n
He said that the crash resulted in two critical injuries, five serious injuries, and 180 with minor injuries.<\/p>\n
No deaths were reported in that incident.<\/p>\n
Then, also in the Thabo Mofutsanyana District, a bus collided with a light motor vehicle at the Reitz and Tweeling crossing.<\/p>\n
Four people were killed in the crash.<\/p>\n
\u201cAcross all scenes, EMS implemented mass-casualty triage and coordinated with law enforcement and road authorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cInvestigations into the circumstances of each incident are under way,\u201d Mvambi said.<\/p>\n
The three bus crashes occurred just a day after 10 people were killed about 24km north of Trompsburg, in the direction of Edenburg. Among the dead were five children.<\/p>\n
Initially, it was reported that 12 people had died, but the death toll was later revised to 10 after some remains were initially counted more than once due to the severity of the crash, Mvambi said.<\/p>\n
The bus, which was carrying around 60 passengers, overturned shortly after 21:30 on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The bus involved in a crash on the R701 in Smithfield, in the Free State. Supplied\/Free State…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[52],"tags":[137,103780,2506,131],"class_list":["post-358984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-south-africa","tag-accidents","tag-crashes","tag-free-state","tag-south-africa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@africa\/117021679758645802","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}