[Image: Facebook]
In a freakishly brutal turn of events straight out of a nightmare, one person has died and five others were left battered after a silver Toyota Isis collided head-on with a sub-adult female elephant on Kazungula Road, about 40 kilometres from Victoria Falls City.
The carnage unfolded on Wednesday evening when the driver, apparently oblivious to the hulking threat ahead, tried to overtake a vehicle that was stopped with its hazard lights on.
It turns out that the parked car wasn’t just loitering; it had wisely halted to avoid barreling into the elephant. The Toyota, however, had other plans. It slammed straight into the animal, which then crashed down onto the Isis like some nightmarish finale from a wildlife documentary. The impact was so ferocious that it launched the car nearly 100 metres off-road and into the bush, with all six occupants hopelessly trapped inside, per ZimEye.
Let’s just say: the photos are not for the faint-hearted.
One image shows the elephant’s massive body sprawled across the rear of the car, tusks poking out like grim punctuation, trunk limp, as if mid-sigh. Scattered around: shattered headlights, mangled metal, and the kind of wreckage you only see in disaster movies. The car’s back end was completely obliterated under the sheer mass of the elephant.
Another grim visual, possibly from a video or a string of stills, shows armed figures at the wreckage, likely wildlife officials. One’s shining a flashlight; another’s gripping what looks very much like a rifle. The elephant’s legs are sticking up in the air, a tragic confirmation that it died on top of the vehicle.
Now here’s where things get messy. Authorities stated: “The elephant was euthanised to allow for the recovery of the deceased passenger from the vehicle wreckage.”
But the internet’s already asking the tough questions: Was the animal still alive at the time of the response? Could non-lethal alternatives, such as tranquilisation, have been used instead?
Cue the conservationists and wildlife experts, now demanding clarity and a full incident report. And honestly? Fair enough. With an endangered species involved, the bar for transparency should be sky high.
The passenger in the front seat didn’t survive. Pronounced dead on the scene. The remaining five were rushed to the hospital with injuries that ranged from bad to worse.
Adding to the fury is the fact that this stretch of Kazungula Road is a known wildlife corridor – and yet, reportedly, it’s a lawless zone when it comes to basic safety: no signs, no fences, no lights. It’s like playing Russian roulette every time you drive through.
Authorities are keeping names under wraps for now. Updates to come – but for now, one question echoes loudest: how the hell was this even allowed to happen?
[Source: ZimEye]
