No fewer than 45 persons have died in South Africa after the bus conveying them plunged some 50m (165ft) off a bridge into a ravine.
Only one child, an eight-year-old girl survived the accident.
The passengers were travelling from Botswana’s capital Gaborone to an Easter service in the town of Moria, when the incident occurred.
South African authorities claimed that the bus crashed through a barrier and caught fire when it hit the ground in the north-eastern Limpopo province.
A South African Public Broadcaster revealed that the vehicle lost control and went off a bridge on the Mmamatlakala mountain pass between Mokopane and Marken, around 300km (190 miles) north of Johannesburg.
Rescue operations went on late into Thursday evening, with some of those killed reportedly hard to reach amid the debris.
She said the South African government would help repatriate the bodies and hold a full inquiry into the cause of the crash.
