THREE nurses who died in a Mozambique road crash were in a bus which had not been passed roadworthy, an inquest heard.

Helen Golder, 33, from Hoghton, Elizabeth Wilson, 31, and Susan Andrews, 32, had taken a holiday from their jobs to provide intensive care for sick children in the capital, Maputo, when a tyre blew on June 30 last year.

Ms Golder, of the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust, London, and Ms Wilson, of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, both died at the scene of the head-on crash on the way to Kruger Park in South Africa.

Ms Andrews, who worked at Bristol’s Frenchay Hospital, died two days later after being declared brain-stem dead.

The women had just completed a week of unpaid medical work for the Chain of Hope Charity, on a mission led by heart surgeon Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub.

Inquests into their deaths, held in Gloucester, heard evidence from a fellow passenger who claimed the company operating the bus had performed no safety checks before the day trip.

Clive Kidd, one of 11 passengers, told the coroner the vehicle was travelling up to 75mph when the tyre burst - 40mph over the limit.

He said he heard a noise “as if we were going over rumble strips” before the front right tyre blew out and the bus veered into the path of an oncoming car.

Only the driver and front passenger were legally required to wear seatbelts in the country, he said.

Mr Kidd said the operator Thompson Mozambique Advisor had told him the bus due to make the journey was being serviced and the one in the accident was an unchecked replacement.

Post-mortem tests carried out in the UK confirmed that all three women died of multiple injuries.

Gloucestershire Coroner Alan Crickmore recorded accidental death verdicts on Ms Golder, Ms Wilson, of Leyton, London, and Ms Andrews, of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

Mr Crickmore said: “These were three young women who were undertaking charitable work, who sadly lost their lives in the course of that work.”