The Police spokesman, Mr Assuman Mugenyi, who arrived at the scene in the afternoon said: "We don't know the number of the dead yet. But we are carrying out a joint operation to get the dead out of the water".
How it happened
The accident happened at around 11 a.m. along the bridge over the River Nile - the only direct motor road between Kampala and Jinja.
The Jinja District Police Commander, Mr Anthony Omoding, said a truck reg. no. UAE 765T with a trailer reg. no. 907 UBR belonging to F. Langdown & Sons, which was headed to Jinja, lost control and hit three vehicles, pushing two into the water.
"When the trailer reached the bridge, the driver switched on the front-lights. I think he was indicating that he had lost control of the trailer," Omoding told The Monitor at the bridge yesterday.
"So the security stopped a mini-bus taxi that was heading towards Kampala1/4the driver of the taxi refused to stop."
A private in the Military Police, Mr Robert Nyapae, who is deployed at the dam guard post, shot the front tyres of the trailer in an attempt to bring it to a halt.
The police boss said that the trailer then went over a hump and swerved across the bridge.
"The trailer hit the taxi and then a stationary Fuso lorry that had developed a mechanical problem and was parked at the bridge," he said.
According to the officer, the trailer, which was at this point completely out of control, then smashed into a vehicle with government plates pushing both cars into the river.
The cars hurtled through the aluminium guardrails, which offered only meek resistance, before plunging into the dark, icy waters of the River Nile.
Omoding said a couple travelling in a Land Rover Discovery survived narrowly after the trailer thundered into their car.
Dam workers told The Monitor that the spot where the vehicles sunk into the river is about 200 metres deep.
Eyewitness accounts
Mr Rashid Dedya was coming from Mbiko and headed to Jinja, and he says he saw three cars plunge into the river.
He almost got onto a taxi that was rammed into by the trailer. "I asked the conductor of the mini-bus taxi to take me for Shs 400 to Jinja but he refused. So I boarded the next taxi," Dedya said yesterday.
"There was a trailer going towards Jinja that had lost control and hit a Dyna truck, then hit a taxi, a Pajero belonging to government and later a mini-bus Coaster.
"The Coaster, the government vehicle and the Dyna fell in the river," he said.
A shocked Dedya added: "The trailer then hit a man travelling along the bridge and he fell into the river."
The taxi that Dedya almost got on was the one involved in the accident. A truck driver who was at the scene, Mr Ibrahim Kayitsinga, said the accident was caused by the failure of the trailer's brakes.
Unlucky escape
Francis Otim, a farmer from Kamuli, was in that taxi. Eyewitnesses say that when it became clear that the trailer was going to ram into the taxi, he tried to jump out and save his life.
Instead, in a cruel twist of fate, he was caught by the huge truck and mangled under its tyres.
"His head was crashed by the trailer," police spokesman Mugenyi said. He died on the spot.
The deceased's son, Mr Kenneth Otim, who is the spokesman of Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Ltd., arrived at the scene within an hour of the accident - only to learn that his father had died in the accident.
Rescue efforts fail
By the time The Monitor left the dam at 6:20 p.m. - several hours after the accident - no attempt had been made to recover the bodies or cars from under the river.
First, a Crane truck called in to help retrieve the wreckage left - reportedly because the owners had not been paid.
Then some divers turned up and demanded for money before they could take a dip into the waters.
But, according to policewoman Betty Achianat, they too left "because there was no money".
Then a rescue crew was brought in from the Fire Brigade Headquarters in Kampala but they too made no attempt to get into the water.
"For us we are versatile and ready to dive in the water," one of the crewmembers told The Monitor, "but we don't know the depth of this spot so we need help from Eskom."
Officials from Eskom - the company that runs the dam - were frantically trying to get professional divers as darkness fell.
But apparently, only one of their two professional divers was available. "Vincent is the only diver around. The other professional diver who should go in the river and help Vincent is in Kisoro district and his phone is off," the officer in charge of traffic in Jinja, Mr Daniel Zeba, told The Monitor a few moments after he spoke to Eskom officials.
Efforts by The Monitor to speak to the Eskom officials were futile as they were locked away in their office.
Mugenyi later said that a rescue operation would be put in place. "The Police Fire Brigade, Eskom and professional divers from the Civil Aviation Authority are all involved," Mugenyi said.
However, by the time we went to press, a source who left the dam after 7 p.m. said that no such operation had began.
Traffic disrupted
Meanwhile, traffic between Kampala and Jinja was disrupted for most of yesterday and passengers had to walk across the bridge.
A curious crowd of onlookers fought running battles with the security on the bridge as they jostled to catch a glimpse of what was in the river.
But fishermen on the other side of the river went about their normal business, seemingly oblivious of the commotion on the river above - or in its murky depths downstream.
The Mayor of Jinja Municipality, Mr David Wakudumira, who was at the scene, said that an alternative bridge should be built across the river.
The junior minister for Energy, Mr Daudi Migereko, who rushed to the scene after the accident, said the government is working on an alternative route to Kampala.
The minister, however, said that such a route could only be built after the findings of a study that was recently commissioned have been discussed.
Bridge over troubled waters?
A pick-up truck carrying security guards plunged into the Nile over the dam last year, killing all four occupants.
That accident, which occurred at night, was blamed on poor visibility.
