Buttevant is a village in County Cork known mainly for some ancient monastic
ruins. And for being the location of the most serious rail crash in Irish
history in which 18 people were killed back in 1980. The accident became
front-page news for months afterwards, lead to a massive multi-million pound
official inquiry that resulted, inter alia, in a comprehensive upgrading of
rolling stock and operational procedures.
The accident even has its own unique Wikipedia page and a memorial monument
at the scene. To put this accident in context the total number of rail
fatalities in Ireland since the middle of the nineteenth century is 68, which
equates to roughly one every three years.
I raise this obscure information to put some perspective on the breathtaking
fatality figures for the Rainbow Nation of South Africa. According to the
Railway Safety Regulator (a very busy man) there were just short of five
hundred rail fatalities in the year before last. Five hundred! Normalising for
the respective countries’ population variances SA’s annual fatalities should
number three or four! Not five hundred. Good God Almighty, what has
become of a country that was once of the First World? I don’t even need to see
the figures that applied under Apartheid. I just know they were a tiny fraction
of those under the current corrupt buffoons. And this from The South
African: “MetroRail Cape Town has lost half [my emphasis] its fleet to
arson attacks and vandalism”.
Like everything else there the education system too is spiralling down the tube, exemplified by the stunning achievement of a school which boasted a zero pass rate in Standard Examinations. By way of explanation 20 year-old Matriculation candidate Kholofelo Matlou points out “I believe the problem was teaching and learning”. With that kind of insight I’d say Kholofelo will matriculate with flying colours in 2025.
Great job boys. New Zimbabwe looms on the horizon.
Source- The Irish Savant
