In unprecedented circumstances, the accident affected many lives in the Lowveld and even changed the way we as a newspaper did our stories.
The call from local lawyer Sias van Rensburg came in at approximately 12:30 on the Monday, informing us of the horrific accident just outside Lydenburg.
Within minutes two reporters, Erna van Wyk and Raymond Travers, were on their way to the accident scene where horrendous sights awaited them on their arrival some 40 minutes later. (Read Raymond’s story elsewhere on this page.)
Those days we only had one duty cellphone, as big as a brick, and I asked the two to regularly give me feedback. Usually, our Tuesday newspaper would have been in the final stages for production, but we stopped and waited for them to reach the scene.
After that first call, I knew it was going to become a day which our newsroom would talk about for many years to come.
It was horrific. Mutilated bodies were scattered around the Springbok Atlas bus and 26 tourists and their guide were dead. There were 36 passengers in the bus when the South African driver lost control, the bus overturned and plunged into a veld area next to the road.
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Travel bags, refreshments and even seats were scattered over a 100-metre radius. The roof was torn off by the impact and the passengers were ripped from their seats.
Fourteen injured passengers were transported to Lydenburg Hospital, two to Witbank and a few to Nelspruit Mediclinic. The group had been on their way back from a tour to the Kruger National Park.
In the newsroom, the editorial team started phoning the tour company, tourism bodies and other interested parties to get more information. At the scene, Erna and Raymond were taking photographs and getting information.
Our reporters broke the news of the terrible accident to many authorities. Then the calls from foreign newspapers, mostly London-based, started coming in.
Fleet Street was desperately looking for pictures and information. At approximately 16:00, seven London newspapers, including many well-known titles like Daily Mirror, The Sun, Evening Standard, Daily Express, The Daily Telegraph, The Times, Daily Mail and a French-based news agency, were phoning every 30 minutes to find out when they could expect photos.
In South Africa, the daily newspapers eagerly waited for news of the accident and photos. When Erna rushed into the office just after 17:00, BBC Radio was ready to interview her live from London.
Our films were being developed at the speed of light and we were ready to start scanning. It was around 18:00 when we tried to send our first batch of pictures to London.
Murphy’s Law never fails. The email lines were very slow, apparently due to cable problems, and it took 10 minutes per photo to go through. We desperately needed a plan B.
Our first offer for help came from Alex van der Merwe at Laeveld Koöperasie. Without hesitating, he offered to open up his offices where we could get a faster link.
Colyn Serfontein, at the time doing business as a website designer, offered us the use of his iSDN line to email the photos.
In the end, we opted for Telkom’s offer to email the photos via their microwave systems. With the help of Telkom’s microwave link, the newspapers had their photos by 20:00.
In the office, the editorial team rushed to get our own newspaper done. At 02:00 that morning, the first front pages of London newspapers were shown on Sky News – and there were Lowvelder’s photos.
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