MPUMALANGA, South Africa (CBS) -- The truck-driver involved in the train crash in South Africa on Friday has been arrested and is expected to appear in court on Monday to answer to murder charges.
The accident in Mpumalanga Province, near the Mozambique border, claimed 25 lives at a railway level crossing.
The collision happened at the railway crossing early on Friday morning. A goods train was traveling from the coalfields of Gauteng to Maputo, in Mozambique while a truck carrying 49 workers from a nearby orange orchard was crossing over the railway line.
Witnesses said that the driver did not stop to check for an oncoming train, and the unthinkable tragedy happened at 07:23. Many of the 49 fruit pickers on the back of the truck died on the impact. Others are still in hospital with serious injuries.
"The train was making noise, but the driver did not look right and look left," said a survivor.
For the survivors, there is plenty of pain, shock and anger. But for the victims' families, there's sadness, disbelief and despair.
"I'm very, very angry. I think the person did not care about other peoples' lives. Otherwise this accident should have been avoided. It is a great loss to the family, to the community and to South Africa as a whole. He was a very respectful child. We expected him to be something, to do something to the country, but unfortunately we lost him," said Lizzy Nyoni, a victim's foster mother.
The wreckage of the three-ton truck parked at the Malelane Police Station, where the driver is behind bars, facing 25-counts of murder.
"A three-ton truck had about 49 people in it and the driver did not comply with the road regulation. And we feel as the provincial government that, indeed the law must take its course," confirmed Vr. Shongwe, staff member working at community safety department of Mpumalanga.
Other parts of the wreckage lay at a nearby scrap yard and are torn to pieces, just like many of the victims and the lives of the loved-ones they've left behind.
South African President Jacob Zuma has expressed outrage and offered his condolences to those who lost family members and friends in the horror crash.