{"id":42753,"date":"2026-01-06T22:51:28","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T20:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/accidents\/children-among-the-victims-in-a-head-on-collision-on-the-m70-in-the-embundweni-area-just-outside-pietermaritzburg\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T22:51:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T20:51:28","slug":"children-among-the-victims-in-a-head-on-collision-on-the-m70-in-the-embundweni-area-just-outside-pietermaritzburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/accidents\/children-among-the-victims-in-a-head-on-collision-on-the-m70-in-the-embundweni-area-just-outside-pietermaritzburg\/","title":{"rendered":"Children among the victims in a head-on collision on the M70 in the Embundweni area, just outside Pietermaritzburg."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>KwaZulu Private Ambulance Service responded to a scene of absolute devastation this afternoon following a head-on collision on the M70 in the Embundweni area, just outside Pietermaritzburg.<\/p>\n<p>At approximately 13:00, emergency dispatchers received reports of a severe motor vehicle collision. Upon arrival, first responders were met with a chaotic scene involving a Toyota Quantum minibus taxi and a hatchback passenger vehicle. The force of the head-on impact left both vehicles with extensive structural damage, showing the terrifying nature of the crash.<\/p>\n<p>Paramedics immediately initiated a mass casualty triage protocol to manage the high volume of patients. Following a rapid and thorough assessment, it was determined that three individuals had sustained serious injuries, requiring urgent advanced life support intervention. An additional 14 patients suffered minor to moderate injuries.<\/p>\n<p>Tragically, the victims included a group of children between the ages of 13 and 15. These young pedestrians&#8230;<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arrivealive.co.za\/news.aspx?s=1&#038;i=76029&#038;page=children-among-the-victims-in-a-head-on-collision-on-the-m70-in-the-embundweni-area-just-outside-pietermaritzburg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more on Arrive Alive <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KwaZulu Private Ambulance Service responded to a scene of absolute devastation this afternoon following a head-on collision on the M70 in the Embundweni area, just outside Pietermaritzburg. At approximately 13:00, emergency dispatchers received reports of a severe motor vehicle collision. Upon arrival, first responders were met with a chaotic scene involving a Toyota Quantum minibus [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42754,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.arrivealive.co.za\/\/ckfinder\/userfiles\/images\/Screenshot%202026-01-06%20145157.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2149],"tags":[1888,1327],"class_list":["post-42753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-accidents","tag-taxi","tag-taxi-accident"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.arrivealive.co.za\/\/ckfinder\/userfiles\/images\/Screenshot%202026-01-06%20145157.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}