Johannesburg - Parliament's portfolio committee on police on Friday sent its condolences to the families of four police officers and a truck driver killed in an explosion on the N1 in Limpopo.
“Their act of bravery in trying to save another man's life will stay in our hearts forever and I hope their deaths remind South Africans of the sacrifices that our police make on a daily basis,” the committee's chairwoman, Annelizé van Wyk, said in a statement.
The five were killed in the early hours of Thursday when they attended to an accident between a grocery truck and a truck carrying explosives between Polokwane and Mokopane. The grocery truck rear-ended the truck carrying blasting caps around 1am. Three other vehicles were damaged in the subsequent explosion.
The Star reported that the officers were trying to rescue the trapped driver in the grocery truck when the explosion occurred. Three other officers were injured and taken to hospital. Two of them were discharged on Friday morning, said Limpopo police spokeswoman Colonel Ronel Otto.
“The other member, whose leg had to be amputated, is still in hospital.”
Van Wyk wished the officer a speedy recovery, and said she was confident that a thorough investigation would be undertaken to establish the cause of the accident. - Sapa