MAIL & GUARDIAN (SOUTH AFRICA), AFP (FRANCE)

Worldcrunch

JOHANNESBURG - As many as 30 people were feared dead when a train collided with a farm truck in South Africa's northeastern province of Mpumalanga.

Andre Visser, a spokesperson for South African emergency services, told the Johannesburg daily Mail & Guardian that a coal train had collided with the large truck carrying as many as 50 farmworkers in a steel container similar to those used in shipping. The initial death toll was put at 19, with 24 injured, but Thulani Sibuyi, head of eastern Mpumalanga province's community service department told AFP that at least 30 people were killed in the incident.

"It would appear as if the truck driver may have crossed the railway line without having a proper look-out, and as a result the train hit him and then pulled him for about a kilometer to two kilometers," said Sibuyi. "The bodies are lying all over the scene, people torn apart."

The train driver was unharmed.