Oil spill shuts road to Zambia

THE road which runs from Victoria Falls to the border with Zambia was closed for nearly 24 hours when it became slippery after cooking oil that was being transported in a truck spilled onto the road.

Residents looted varying amounts of cooking oil when a haulage truck tilted its load near Victoria Falls Border Post on Friday evening, resulting in the spillage.

Vehicles diverted to Zambezi Drive past the Big Tree until Saturday evening when the road was re-opened.

Livingstone Way, linking the town centre and the border was barricaded as it had become slippery while police struggled to disperse scores of people who were using containers to collect the cooking oil which was dripping from the truck owned by Cochrane Trucking Company based in Lusaka, Zambia.

Some residents left with as much as about 10 litres of cooking oil which they collected using containers.

For the truck driver Mr Assan Chibwana, it was indeed Friday 13th, a day associated with bad omen as he had to engage some people to guard the truck at night fearing that 'looters' might return.

He said he was headed for Lusaka from Johannesburg with 21 tonnes of cooking oil in 20-litre containers when the incident happened.

Mr Chibwana said he lost control of the vehicle while driving past a railway line fly over between the town centre and border post
"I was driving towards the border intending to cross into Zambia when breaks loosened after a pressure pipe came off. As a result, I lost control of the vehicle as I tried to negotiate the curve hence the load tilted to one side leading to the contents spilling," said Mr Chibwana.

He said he managed to bring the truck to a halt about 200 metres from the fly over but the whole stretch was slippery due to some cooking oil he lost.

Mr Chibwana said in no time people swarmed the truck with different kinds of containers.

"I could not stop them as the numbers kept growing. However, some were now using knives to force open undamaged buckets. Fortunately police came but they struggled to clear the crowd until they threatened to arrest them," added the driver.

He said he struggled to stop the truck for about 200 metres.

A Chronicle news crew visited the scene on Saturday morning and noticed that while the load was still on the truck and covered with a tent, cooking oil was still dripping and flowing to the roadside.

The driver had been joined by his workmates from Lusaka to guard the truck waiting for clearance from the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority to offload and repack.

Environmental Management Agency (EMA) and Victoria Falls Municipality workmen were busy using water and soap to scrub the tarmac with hard brooms.

EMA manager for Matabeleland North Mrs Chipo Mpofu-Zuze said the road was opened after cleaning.

"Regulation is that the transporter should rehabilitate the area while our role is to come in to enforce and monitor because we don't want whatever chemical there is to pollute the environment. In this case we are happy the company bought detergents to clean the polluted area while the Victoria Falls Municipality supplied water in a bowser to clean the road stretch," said Mrs Mpofu-Zuze.