Bus, fuel tanker crash kills 36 in Afghanistan

The passenger bus was on its way from Kandahar to Kabul when it collided with a fuel tanker. In the accident, 36- people were killed and more than 20 others were wounded,” Zabul’s Governor Bismillah Afghanmal told AFP. 

The collision sparked an inferno and many of the victims, including women and children, were burned beyond recognition, he said. Some of the wounded were rushed to hospitals in provincial capital Qalat as well as neighbouring Kandahar province, said Ghulam Jilani Farahi, deputy Zabul police chief. The Kabul-Kandahar highway passes through militancy-prone areas and many bus drivers are known to drive recklessly at top speeds so as to not get caught in insurgent activity. 

Afghanistan has some of the world’s most dangerous roads, often in dilapidated condition and traffic rules are seldom enforced. Many in the country rely on old and rickety passenger vehicles, meaning that high casualty road traffic accidents are common. 

In May, at least 73 people were killed when two passenger buses and an oil tanker burst into flames in a head-on collision in eastern Ghazni province, in one of the worst road accidents in the war-battered nation. The World Bank last November signed a USD 250 million grant to upgrade roads crossing Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush mountains.