Accidents | A bus derailed into a ravine in South Africa, at least 45 died – only an 8-year-old girl survived the accident

in South Africa at least 45 people have died after a bus derailed from a bridge into a cliff, says the country's Ministry of Transport.

Of the 46 people on the bus, only an eight-year-old girl survived and was taken to the hospital with serious injuries.

According to South Africa's public broadcaster SABC, the passengers were pilgrims on their way to an Easter ceremony at a church, reported CNN.

According to a statement from the Ministry of Transport, they traveled from the neighboring country of Botswana to Moria in the northern part of South Africa. On the way, the bus derailed into a gorge from a bridge connecting the mountain slopes and caught fire upon impact with the ground.

South African News24 website according to the accident happened on Thursday evening in the province of Limpopo near the town of Mokopane. A representative of the Ministry of Transport spoke to the website Collen Msibi said rescue workers have started searching the accident site.

According to Msibi, the driver may have lost control of his vehicle, after which the bus crashed into the railings of the bridge, plunged down into the gorge and caught fire. However, he emphasized that the cause is still being investigated.

Destructive road traffic accidents are quite common in South Africa, even though its road network is the most developed on the continent.

Just a few hours before the accident, the country's president Cyril Ramaphosa appealed to South Africans to be careful when traveling on the roads during the Easter rush hour.

“Let's do our best to make this a safe Easter. Easter does not have to be a time when we sit and wait for statistics about tragedies on our roads,” Ramaphosa said in a statement.

Last year there were two major traffic accidents in the same province of Limpopo.

In September, twenty people, most of whom were diamond mine workers, died when the bus carrying them collided with a truck. Also a year ago in February, twenty people died again in a collision between a bus and a valuables transport truck.