Two bus accidents striking a fuel tanker and a vehicle on a highway in central Afghanistan killed at least 52 people and injured 68, a provincial official said on Thursday.
The accidents occurred late Wednesday in Ghazni province on the same route connecting Kabul to southern Kandahar city, according to provincial head of information and culture Hamidullah Nisar on X, without saying how many people were killed or injured in each collision.
There is a possibility that the numbers will rise,” Nisar told reporters outside a hospital in Ghazni city where casualties had been sent. He stated that several of the injured were in “critical condition” and had been transferred to Kabul for treatment.
Chief government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid stated on X that the authorities expressed “great regret” over the accidents and that an investigation would be started.
Teams worked into the morning to collect wreckage at the sites, with hunks of metal and broken glass strewn across the Andar neighbourhood, as well as bus passengers’ clothes and food, according to an AFP correspondent.
Khadim, one of the injured in the Shahbaz tragedy, stated that the noise of the accident shook him awake before he lost consciousness. When he came to and pushed himself out of the wreck, he “saw a lot of people under the vehicle and on the ground around us; there was crying and blood everywhere.
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