A Bulawayo bound Greyhound bus was gutted by fire while parked in Louis Trichardt yesterday.
ZimEye received the first report which has been confirmed by the bus company. A receptionist confirmed the incident early Sunday morning saying, “there was no one in the bus, it was a stationary bus and no one was hurt.”
Questioned on the bus driver and conductor she replied saying, “it was only the driver,” but would not go into details on the driver’s condition.
On a second call, another receptionist, a male said the driver managed to escape. He said, the bus was traveling from Johannesburg to Musina to pick up people who were going to Zimbabwe, as there was a breakdown of another Greyhound bus.
“The driver managed to escape unhurt,” he said.
– this is a developing report – REFRESH THIS PAGE FOR UPDATES. The problem of buses catching fire is not uncommon, and in the UK for instance in December 2016, a double decker bus went on fire and emergency services called upon to bring the blaze under control.
Summarises @FirstWestYorks transport provision #UpInFlames #Bramley pic.twitter.com/LRu6tlNSo3
— Joel Evans (@JoelGEvans) December 1, 2016
2007 December I was on Greyhound bus that burnt, completely to ashes, just as in the above pic. We were travelling from Johannesburg to Harare and the incident happened just outside Polokwane. There was a group of guys from Bulawayo who had been drinking whilst in their seats at the back of the bus, these guys had told the driver many times that they could smell something burning and advised him to have a look but no, driver kept on going. After being pressured by about 5 of these passengers who refused to return to their seats until the bus stopped, the driver obliged, and as soon as he went outside to have a look, he ran back inside and shouted “bhazi rakutsva”!! What a disaster it was. Greyhound is fast becoming like SA Roadlink. To make matters worse, because of T&C’s on the ticket, the most passengers were paid out for lost goods was R500 chete. There were no fatalities.
I usually travel using the Greyhound coaches. What I have noticed over he years is a deterioration of standards. The buses that services the Johannesburg-Bulawayo route are rejects from other routes. While the Harare, Maputo and most South African routes are serviced by well-serviced coaches, Bulawayo has had to make do with rejects. At one time, the coach’s aircon system is down, either hot or cold, or has mechanical fault. In early March we were made to travel in bus whose shocks were faulty, and a learner mechanic was called to attend to the coach while we were at Bowman station. What makes me say was a learner is because he had to phone someone more experienced to fix the bus and he didn’t do a good job at all. Mmmmm, Greyhound management has to change their attitude towards the Bulawayo route.