Dube, 38, was travelling from Bulawayo to Harare just after 9.30PM on Monday when his car was side-swiped by a heavy goods truck going the opposite way, forcing it off the road near Gweru, police said.

“Indications are that the truck encroached into his lane and when the two vehicles touched, Dube’s smaller car was forced off the road and he lost control. He crashed into a tree and he died on impact together with his front seat passenger Collin Murozvi,” Midlands police spokesman Patrick Chademana said.

Police said three other passengers who were in the back seat of Dube's car were in a critical condition in hospital.

The Media Institute for Southern Africa (MISA) said it had learnt of Dube’s death with “great shock and sadness”.

Colleagues took to online social networking sites to pay their tributes to the popular journalist who cut his teeth in the industry at the Chronicle newspaper in Bulawayo.

“Edwin Dube, Chubby, Chubbias, Siqholo, dear friend, colleague and brother sadly lost to a horrific accident. What a loss!” wrote the Sunday News’s news editor Innocent Madonko on his Facebook page.

Limukani Ncube, another former colleague at the Zimbabwe Newspapers Bulawayo branch said: “He’s gone, just like that ... shocked. Only God knows why.”

Admore Tshuma, a former colleague, said: “I spent years with him at the Chronicle. I regarded his mum as my mum. Earthly life is like a passing cloud.”