Three teenagers have died and five more are said to be in critical condition after a bridge linking classrooms at a school collapsed.
The incident occurred in Vanderbijlpark, a city about 40 miles south of Johannesburg.
Panyaza Lesufi, the head of the Gauteng Province Education Department, told ABC News that 26 other schoolchildren were injured when the walkway collapsed.
“We’ve shut down the school until further notice to investigate how this could have happened,” Lesufi said.
Three of the critically injured students were airlifted to the hospital, according to a spokesperson for Netcare 911, an emergency response company.