Boksburg Fuel-Truck Explosion in 2022 About two years ago, on 24 December 2022, I recall a disaster event shown on mainstream TV which did not even make a blip on national SA radar, because it was well into the holiday season, and around that time ratings for viewership was always lowest because saffers at this point of the year would not give a shit if the country was sliding into the ocean in the style of that San-Francisco disaster movie played by THE ROCK, as all Saffers would be drunk and away from their homes. 
It additionally brought my attention, because it was so very short on National TV news broadcasts, but on the provincial level, and on the local level of Boksburg town (the city in which the disaster occurred), it was a beehive. There was other international news in that time which i forgot which occupied the majority of the 30minutes news timeframe those days, but i forgot what 
including news about the everpresent Zuma-corruptions and how he's still fighting fricking the Zondo-Commission charges till this day 
Also, at least once every December-holiday period there is one colossal crash of a taxi with another taxi on the news, with a death-toll of like 30-50 people, because the minibus taxis which the very poor people (mostly black peeps) use to transport themselves from their work to their families for the holiday month, tends to be overloaded and overpassengered to the extreme, where there is a popular joke about SA minibus taxi driver are so greedridden that they fricking detach their fricking steering wheels, and reattatch spanners to the drive column instead so they have space on their right-hand side for another passenger to sit from, as the taxi is already so massively overloaded with people and luggage! (in RSA we drive on the Left-side of the road as per Bongland) 
Jokes which are often very much based upon reality 
https://www.newsflare.com/video/250636/taxi-driver-caught-using-wrench-as-steering-wheel
The point is that traffic and vehicular related accidents with lax safety standards practiced by poor 3rd world people, in 20 year old ROAD-unworthy vehicles, and safety-standardsunenforced by the authorities or traffic police of SA, has made Saffricans very jaded with yearly traffic turbo-disaster crashes, especially during the famous crush of the December holiday season where basically 80% of the country's population migrates from one part of the country temporarily for at least two weeks, making our roads as stagnated as sand-blocked firehoses. And the inevitable event of 50 people dying when two raggitty taxis with no seatbelts, and the people packed literally like sardines 
end up crashing, and the empty promisises by the gov they will enforce stricter traffic police stop-checks on all road-unworthy vehicles blabla blabla, has further made people less prone to give a shit when some catastrophe involving 40 dead school children sprawling on the sidewalk of Gauteng Technicon or whatever.
HOWEVER, upon further looking at the event, it was both much much more gruesome than the typical clown car crash event, and also had a heapload of drama involved 
The explosion event shocked and tramatized the residents of Boksburg, and some after events would stir some drama for all involved, including those who filmed the event.
To begin Boksburg is located within the golden province of Gauteng 
, and like all settlements located within the Golden province, is densely populated. There's always pedestrians within the streets and sidewalks, and and the roads are always jammed up, so any terrorist who wants to suicide bomb SA would pick literally any city within the Gauteng conurbation.
THE EXPLOSION EVENT:
On 24 December 2022, about between 6:30 - 7:00 AM, a Fuel-Truck which transporting liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), got stuck beneath a bridge close to Tambo Memorial Hospital. To the luckless fool, the bridge had appeared to be high enough for the truck to pass, but the incline at the bottom of the bridge raised the back of the truck and jammed it against the underside of the bridge at approximately 06:15am SAST (Safrican standard time).
The driver had immediately realize that trouble was in the air. According to ISS ( Innovative Staffing Solutions - the truckdriver employer), upon noticing that the tanker's cap having been scraped off, he first informed them and then alerted the fire department, then attempted to cordon off the area.
Unfortunately being the way that South-Africans are, people literally just ignored him, no matter how much he tried to instill upon the locals the extreme danger they were in . Pedestrians would just ignore him, and walk past the panicking driver, right past the truck with the giant fricking hazard signs, obviously crushed beneath the bridge, with impatient Joburg drivers zooming between and beside the stuck truck. Later a private security guard would arrive on scene and immediately also understood the impending danger, but their combined efforts fell on death ears.
At about 06:45am SAST, the truck ignited. I don't know how the heck, if from the crash or because it was deadly hot in december, or becuase the liquefied petroleum was extremely flammable. By this point Firefighters 
had arrived and tried to extinguish the inferno.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/24/world/africa/johannesburg-tanker-explosion.html
At about 7:00 AM, the Fuel-Truck exploded, but it was a smallish explosion which didn't overtly harm anyone, and this initial explosion would be followed by 2 biggish explosions and a series of smaller explosions, looking and sounding like fireworks going off. This commotion attracted a crowd people who were curious about the activity, which set the stage for disaster and tragedy. Because the 4th and largest explosion, was on a vastly different scale, instead of fireworks, as colossal fireball would cover 500 meters into each direction of the road, funneled by the bridge overhanging the truck causing the flames to spread amongst the ground, instead of rising directly up into the atmosphere like atom bombs famously do, and thus doing maximum damage and injury to the people and building on the ground surface.
CHAOS:
You will notice that many of the initial articles which came out the day or week after the explosion have differing and inconclusive stats about the injured and dead, because of the vast amount of unorganized chaos which followed.
https://www.news24.com/citypress/news/live-gas-tanker-explosion-rocks-boksburg-20221224
To begin with in this sea of shit, the local hospital of the vicinity was also caught in the blast and partially destroyed, with several nurses injured and outright killed. So when people would arrive or be brought to this local hospital, there was already complete anarchy 
with the nurses barely capable of taking care of themselves and their burnt colleagues, never mind taking in a hundred burned people, even on a good day the place would have been overwhelmed.
Thus a heapload of people would be ferried to neighbouring hospitals, including workers and nurses at the local hospital as well! 
so when finally 48 hours later, the dust had settled and the chaos become at least somewhat organized, the police would start properly gathering reports on the injured and diseased. And proper casualty figures could be compiled and reported. But in the immediate aftermath reports from different journ*lists and Hospitals conflicted this counting, as can be seen from the above article titles.
Thus to amplify the horror of the day, the damage to the Tambo Memorial Hospital (the local nearby hospital) left it unable to render assistance in the immediate aftermath, despite its proximity to the disaster site. In fact its proximity was probably the bad luck of the day - had it been located just a kilometer farther, it would have been unaffected, and capable of assistance.
But the chaos was further amplified by the slow and inept response by the SAPS (South African Police Services), who arrived well well beyond the final explosion. Private Security companies would be the 1st responders to alleviate the chaos, and provide 1st-aid and transport for the injured. There was widespread condemnation for the police r-slurred reaction time.
Additionally, the firefighters at that time was the closest in the area, and with them caught and killed in the blast, the fire would rage for hours before reinforcements could arrive.
The Gauteng Emergency Medical Services, the ambulances, was at least much more successful and competent, and a sumtotal of 30 ambulances would be used throughout the day, and about 3 hours after the explosion, all surviving injured would be ferried to the closest neighbouring hospitals in the vicinity, as the Tambo Memorial Hospital was completely inert.
HORROR OF THE INJURED: (NSFW)
Here is a reddit thread about one of the better videos which had captured the immediate aftermath of the tanker-explosion. Be warned this may be distressing.
https://old.reddit.com/r/TerrifyingAsFrick/comments/17kybcf/its_not_a_movie_set
This particular video was circulated amongst social media, like Facebook and WhatsApp groups, well beyond the ability to trace its origin. The man recording the video was widely criticized same day in the immediate aftermath, because he would reply to many injured survivors asking for aid, that they should go to the hospital, since in context the Tambo hospital was just 50-100 meters from the incident, and would theoretically be better salvation for burn victims rather than useless attempts at aid in the middle of the still burning street.
At that time, the man recording the video had not known that Tambo Hospital had been destroyed, and people seeing this video without context did not know n turn, that the man was giving sound advice that the hospital theoretically was just a short walk away. The man would receive hate and death threats for his supposed callousness.
The supreme horror on social media like twitter (before fricking jannies cleaned it up as usual becuase gore ) would be in shock at the state of the survivors, which depending on their share of bad luck would suffer amalgamations of 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree burns - and would be so gruesomely disfigured that many responders of the Private Security helpers, and ambulance drivers, could not determine their race, prior to before they spoke, and their language or accents gave them away.
This is because many of the injured would be covered in black soot and their skin would either be flapping loosely from their arms and faces, or be so discoloured from burning that the skin was bleached white, even the skin of african people. Their clothes had melted into their skin. 
In this video of the redditpost, every single of the burn-victim individuals filmed would perish within 48 hours from their wounds.
=====(Short Transcript from the Redditpost video)
In the beginning of the video, a presumably coloured man begs the man recording: "please, Sir, I'm in pain."
And the guy filming responds: "Go to the hospital." (this came across as very heartless)
In the background dozens and dozens of men and women can be heard screaming in acute agony, crying and begging for god.
In the next moment around the corner from whence the fireball blast came from, are 4 seemingly naked people crawling on the grass or walking around in circles - either shocked or dazed, and in pain and discombobulation. Their skin are bleached white from where the very clothes were incinerated from their backs.
It needs to be understood that these people were standing 300-500 meters away from the explosion, but the bridge and walls had funneled the firebomb like the fins of a waterslide, and people not even aware of the burning Fuel-truck half a kilometer away were caught in flesh-searing heat before they even knew wtf hit them.
========
RESPONSIBILITY:
With the dust finally settling the next day, social media was aghast at the horror of the injuries sustained by survivors, and anger had mounted to who was culpable for this atrocity.
The driver of the tanker survived the incident and initially faced multiple charges, including culpable homicide. "The day after the incident, the South African Police Service (SAPS) stated that the driver, who received only minor injuries during the incident, had been arrested at a local hospital and would face charges of reckless driving, negligence, and multiple counts of culpable homicide and malicious damage to property." 
https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2022-12-25-boksburg-explosion-tanker-driver-arrested
The suspect will appear before the Boksburg Magistrate's Court on Wednesday. βPreliminary investigations found that the loaded gas tanker got stuck trying to drive through a low bridge and the effect resulted in an explosion. The gas tanker was allegedly driving from Richards Bay en route to Botswana,β Muridili said.
https://www.jacarandafm.com/news/news/boksburg-gas-tanker-driver-set-appear-court-wednesday
The driver was expected to appear before the Boksburg Magistrate's Court on 28 December 2022; however, on that day it was reported that he had been released and the charges against him had been dropped, as there was not enough evidence against him. 
This created a shitstorm on social media as angry Safricans and Boksburg residents were grabbing their pitchforks in anger for this driver to be jailed
The Gauteng province Premier expressed regret that the fricking driver had been released and promised that more evidence would be gathered for a stronger case, but 6 months after these lofty words, jack shit had been done since by the SAPS 
6 MONTHS LATER:
https://www.citizen.co.za/news/boksburg-blast-6-months-later-june-2023
And thus people at the Boksburg municipal area would remain pissed. "Members of the public alleged that metro police, who should have been helping the fire department evacuate the area before the explosion, arrived two hours after the blast."
Basically generic Safrica 3rd world system-wide incompetence - the Sewoll Ferry disaster aint got shit on our r-sluration 
"Calls to emergency numbers by the trucking company's control room also proved fruitless on the day, with the fire department deployed late." Forensic investigator Stan Bezuidenhout called the event a βtragicomedy of errorsβ.
There's also still no clarity about why the driver chose to proceed on this route when a washed-out sign, still legible at close quarters, indicated the height restriction of the railway bridge under which it became stuck.
The driver's fate remains a mystery. He has allegedly returned to work and is driving hazardous material tankers again. His employer, ISS, did not have a contactable spokesperson available by the time of filing this story. OF COURSE
The families of the casualties were sueing basically everyone, the municipality, the trucking-company and police 
good luck buddy
People were understandably upset, as it appeared the Fuel-truckdriver was walking free, not because of a lack of evidence of malpractice, but because the metropolitan police was so fricking incompetent and inept, that they couldn't even build such a basic case.
"The National Prosecuting Authority says the driver in the Boksburg gas truck explosion has been released due to a lack of evidence. Therefore he did not appear in court. Sibusiso Valashiya the regional chairperson of NEHAWU said he was not happy with how the government was handling this whole matter. He said the driver being released from police custody with no charges was a denial of justice to those affected. He said the families of nine health care workers need the driver to take accountability for his actions."
Yeah peeps were very fricking mad, especially the family of the woman who lost 4 children in the explosion as in the Youtube video below.
"On 30 December 2022, national police spokesperson Brenda Muridili announced that the police investigation of the explosion was considered "top priority" by the provincial SAPS in Gauteng, and stated that the investigation was at an advanced stage."
It's been 2 years - jackshit happened 
IS DRIVER INNOCENT?
Now the thing is I've painted the truck-driver as a badguy, but people began to examine the events afterwards because the police sure as shit weren't doing their jobs. Journos 
and randoms looked at the street signs on google maps, and saw the important bridge-warning sign to be illegible and in disrepair - thus the truck driver would have been unwarned that the truck would not fit beneath the specific bridge with its unique bump. However war continued to rage on social media about the driver should have been cautious and knowingabout the approximate dimensions of his vehicle and thus it was his incompetence which lead the hazardous vehicle to be prone to accident and danger. 
Further, the driver was reported to appear to have helped, and take responsibility for his accident, as records show he immediately phoned his company, the Police and Fire Brigade about the incident and danger, and had in fact taken precautions to warm people desperately about the imminent danger. Which is why the Fire Brigade arrived so early.
On the other hand, since he survived and was absent, many people on social media accused him of having fled the scene, leaving onlookers to their unknowing doom.
According to some reports he had succumbed to gas inhalation, and had been taken by some nurses to the Tambo Hospital 15 minutes before the final 4th explosion. Man still disbelieved this story, and raged on in the absence of conclusive police report results so long after.
Now chances are quite likely this driver is innocent of malpractice and a comedy of errors just placed him in a bad spot, but many people feel anger towards him still. 
JULIAS MALEMA 
GOES FULL R-SLUR AS USUAL:
While the rest of the Safrican political parties and representatives gave generic but solemn pity and commemoration for the victims, like Cyril Ramaphosa (our current prez) said he sent his condolences to the families of the deceased and wished a speedy recovery to the injured.
https://www.enca.com/news/boksburg-blast-president-ramaphosa-sends-condolences-victims-families
Instead Julias has the Trumpian ability to fricking make any inappropriate moment about himself and his fricking EFF tards. 
====Meanwhile, the EFF has called for the CEO of the logistics company, Infinity Gas, which owns the truck. βUltimately, the CEO is responsible for all operations of the company and is culpable for the tragedy,β the EFF said.====
Julias would go on his usual anti-crapitalist rant about how the driver must not be scapegoated by racist whites, and that the company top command should instead be arrested and so on. This in of itself wasn't unpopular as the victims, 3rd of which were white also intended to sue the company for reparation, but the inappropriate vulgarity of Julias inserting his own politics drew criticism even from his supporters.
The EFF decried the lack of safety of transporting economically-needed but hazardous shit like liquid gas, and wished to reinstate transport via trains as in the old days.......
But the guy was too foolish to identify why south africa utilized trucks as the main transport of all goods in the country, namely that RSA trains are in an absolute state of disrepair and corruption under ANC management for the past 30 years, so that RSA private companies gradually moved from train-based transport to trucking over the decades out of sheer supply and logistical necessity. This would even have been a good talking point for Malena against the ANC, but alas he's too
Anyways lots of from Juju inserting himself in a tragedy.
CARTE BLANCHE INVESTIGATION:
Carte Blanche | M-Net is a South African investigative journ*lism television series that airs on M-Net during prime time viewing on Sunday nights, they began in 1988, and basically they were a private news network who uncovered corruption within the state, at an extremely high quality level of investigative journ*lism. Carte Blanche set the standard of RSA reporters, and has been a staple of Southern African news which are not covered anywhere else.
They had investigated every single misdoings of the ANC gov, and basically their popularity, infamy and wealth exploded as a direct consequences of the corruption which they covered.
Every Sunday 7-o-clock, before the famous 8-o-clock weekly movie on SA M-net, Safricans would get their weekly dose of depression from all of the cockroach-invested rocks which Carte Blanche overturned. Anyways, they are worth several hundred Longposts on their own, but they are infamous.
Carte Blanche found several discrepencies within all of the stories by everyone involved in the explosion, the driver, his employer company, the police, and municipality, so many fricking lies
Carte Blanche found that the calls to emergency services were initially unsuccessful, and that the Ekurhuleni Fire Department eventually answered a call. Showcasing the systemic uselessness and ineptitude of Safrican emergency call centers.
Carte Blanche also found that law enforcement (SAPS and the Metro Police) didn't arrive at the scene until after the final explosion. This was an important detail unknown by other journos and the public, till Carte Blanche discovered it, and added to the public meltdown on twatter on hating on the shit police response 
Carte Blanche also found that the height of the truck was 4m, higher than the 3.6m indicated on the bridge, potentially contradicting the account of his employer. Showing the truckdriver must have gone full r-slur in driving under the bridge which should have been evident to any experienced and sober trucker, that the fricking thing was too low, further implicating the trucker's incompetence.
Anyways this is the best and most comprehensive video of the incident, at 20 minutes if you guys care about it, be warned that it is also extremely explicit and NSFW.
Anyways that's all I git, GOOD NIGHT!
.webp?h=8 "Merry Fistmas!")
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The video of the people screaming and crying was one of the worst things I've seen. Really horrible.
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Link? !rottingcorpses
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https://old.reddit.com/r/TerrifyingAsFrick/comments/17kybcf/its_not_a_movie_set
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Thx neighbor
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Terrifying AS FRICK
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I'm surprised the top>all isn't Trump's inauguration or roe vs wade repeal
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Lollll wow great comment you son of a limp pool noodle
/r/murderedbywords
/r/rareinsults
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Tldw:
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Thx queen
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That butt tho
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