At least 78 people killed as bus collides with fuel truck in western Afghanistan | Afghanistan
In West Afghanistan, seventy -eight people died in a collision between a bus that recently carried the Afghans that were deported from Iran and the other two other vehicles.
The bus hit a motorcycle and a truck carrying fuel on Tuesday night, causing an explosive fire in the Guzara region of Herat Province. Authorities said on Wednesday that two out of the three survivors were killed after the injuries later.
According to the army spokesman Mujeebullah Ansar, seventeen children were killed, but a provincial police source put the number of 19.
A witness Akbar Tawakoli said, “There was a lot of fire… There was a lot of screams, but we couldn’t even get it in 50 meters to save anyone.”
Cleaning teams were trying to remove the torch shell of the bus and the twisted wreck of another vehicle on the roadside early on Wednesday.
Another witness said, “I am very sorry that most of the passengers on the bus are children and women,” he said.
The bus said that he had recently returned to Muhammad Yosuf Saeedi, the capital of Iran.
The Central Taliban government called for an investigation into the incident. “With deep sorrow, we mourn the loss of a large number of Afghan life and a tragic bus collision in Herat last night and the injuries that occurred in the following fire,” he said.
According to the UN Migration Agency, at least 1.5 million people from Iran and Pakistan returned to Afghanistan this year, and both tried to force the immigrants after hosting them.
Most of the deported people have spent years outside the country and come without a place to go, they will have a few items, and face steep challenges to re -place in a country held by endemic poverty and high unemployment.
The Bakhtar News Agency, operated by the state, said that the collision of Tuesday is one of the most deadly in recent years.
Fatal accidents are common in Afghanistan due to the lack of bad roads, dangerous driving and regulation on highways after the crashes that have lasted for decades.
In December, two bus collisions about a truck on a highway in a fuel tanker and a highway in the center of Afghanistan killed at least 52 people.
In March 2024, more than 20 people were killed and 38 injured when a bus collided with a fuel tanker and turned into flames in Southern Helmand province.
In December 2022, another accident took place with a fuel tanker in which Afghanistan was overthrown in the high altitude Salang Pass and killed 31 people.
