• Northern Province Police Commissioner Richard Mweene at the accident Scene along the Maba-Mpulungu road.The Isuzu truck Reg No ACK 5871 was carrying more than 60 people and careered off the road after losing the brakes. Several other people are admintted in Mbala and Mpulungu hospitals with critical conditions. Picture by Mary Bwembya (ZANIS)

By RABECCA CHIPANTA –
THE Government will evacuate two of the 42 Mbala- Mpulungu accident survivors to Lusaka for specialist treatment.
Northern Province Permanent Secretary Jobbicks Kalumba said the two who are currently admitted to Mbala General Hospital intensive care unit were in a critical condition while the other 40 are responding well to treatment.
Dr Kalumba thanked medical personnel at Mbala and Mpulungu general hospitals respectively, where the survivors are admitted, for responding well to the emergency.
“The two are in a critical condition and will soon be evacuated to Lusaka as their condition is bad while the rest of the survivors who are admitted at both Mbala and Mpulungu General Hospitals are stable and are responding well to treatment,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dr Kalumba said the Government would take up the costs of the funerals to help cushion the burden on the bereaved families.
He said the Government would tomorrow hold a mass burial at Mambwe Catholic Mission, for the 17 people that died in the road traffic accident on Saturday morning.
He said the arrangements had been made in a way that would enable the Government facilitate the funeral with ease as all mourners had been advised to mourn from the Mambwe Catholic mission.
“Government has taken the responsibility of procuring the coffins and will also look into supporting the families on funeral arrangements in terms of food and other logistics that can go towards the funeral. The security personnel in the province will look into the aspect of the burial ceremony,” he said.
Dr Kalumba has called on church leaders in the province to desist from allowing the transportation of church members to functions using open trucks as this had been a cause of such fatal accidents.
“We are now losing a lot of people because of people not complying with the law that governs the transportation of people. We want to urge schools, churches and others that they should not use open trucks to transport people otherwise this situation will keep on happening,” he said.
He challenged traffic officers to take an active role by impounding trucks loading people and charging the drivers.
Green Party President Peter Sinkamba has sent a message of condolences to the Government and families of the bereaved.
Mr Sinkamba recalled that the country had experienced two similar accidents three years ago along the Mbala-Nakonde and Mbala-Kasama roads respectively, which resulted in the loss of 27 lives in total adding that the scale of these tragedies had no doubt deeply affected hundreds of people.
“The loss of so many people, including promising young lives is extremely depressing and devastating. We call upon the Government to declare the tragedy as a national disaster. We also urge the President to declare a period of national mourning in honour of the deceased,” he said.
Mr Sinkamba noted that the accidents in rural areas, involved open trucks and called on the Government to come up with a strategy of mass transportation in these areas whereby ZAMPOST, which was financed by Government, should procure ideal and secured mass transport for deployment in accident prone rural areas such as Mbala.
He called on the Road Transport and Safety Agency (RTSA) and the police to intensify patrols, as called for by Vice President Inonge Wina, was not good enough.
Mr Sinkamba said the tragic situation required practical measures to provide alternative mass transportation systems through collaboration of the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU) and ZAMPOST as he was of the belief that disaster management should not be reactive but proactive.