(Kabul) At least 21 people were killed and 38 injured on Sunday in southern Afghanistan when a bus hit a motorcycle and then a tanker truck which caught fire, officials in Helmand province said.
Such a high toll is quite common in Afghanistan where the roads are particularly deadly.
“Early this morning, 21 people were killed in a road accident between a bus, a tanker truck and a motorcycle on a road” in Helmand province, the governor’s spokesperson announced to AFP, Mohammad Qasim Riyaz.
Thirty-eight people were injured, the provincial Information Department later said, updating a previous toll of only 11 injured.
The tanker truck was carrying gasoline and, with the collision, the vehicles caught fire. The bodies of many victims were charred, added the governor’s spokesperson.
Photos posted on social media by the Department of Information show charred vehicles and the cabin of the tanker truck twisted by flames. The road was quickly cleared by the authorities.
PHOTO DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATIONVIA AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The accident took place on the main road linking Herat, in western Afghanistan, to Kandahar (south) then to the capital Kabul, in the center.
According to traffic officials in Helmand province, the bus, which was traveling from Herat to Kabul, first hit the motorcycle, killing the driver and his passenger, in Grishk district.
The bus driver then lost control of his vehicle and collided with the tanker which was traveling from Kandahar to Herat and was arriving in the opposite direction.
Three people on board the tanker died and 16 others on the bus.
Among the 38 injured, 11 were seriously injured, the Department of Information said. Some of the lightly injured had already left the hospital at midday.
Traffic on Afghanistan’s roads, often in very poor condition after four decades of fighting and which cross high mountain ranges, is very deadly.
Furthermore, drivers often have little respect for driving rules.
Thirty-one people died in December 2022 at the Salang pass (center), in the Hindu Kush range, after a tanker overturned, setting fire to other vehicles, in this area at more than 3800 meters above sea level.