When a bus struck an oil tanker and a motorbike on Sunday in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, twenty-one people died and 38 were injured, according to provincial officials.
The nation frequently experiences deadly traffic accidents, which are partly caused by dangerous driving on highways, bad roads, and a lack of regulations.
“A collision between a tanker, a motorcycle, and a passenger bus on Sunday morning resulted in 21 fatalities and 38 injuries,” the provincial information department stated in a post on X.
The accident took place on the Herat-Kandahar highway in Grishk district of Helmand province, it added.
The collision caused the vehicles to ignite, Helmand governor spokesman Mohammad Qasim Riyaz told AFP.
Images shared by the information department on social media showed charred, twisted metal scattered across the highway and the crushed cabin of the tanker.
Clean up crews were on site removing the debris, according to officials.
Of the injured, 11 were seriously hurt and 27 had minor injuries.
According to Helmand traffic management officials, the passenger bus was first involved in a collision with a motorbike carrying two people, killing both riders, while it was traveling from Herat city to the capital Kabul, according to the information department.
A fire was started when the bus driver lost control and collided with an oil tanker that was heading from the southern city of Kandahar to Herat in the opposite direction.
Sixteen bus passengers and three tanker occupants perished in the accident.
In December 2022, an oil tanker had another tragic mishap in which it overturned and caught fire in Afghanistan’s high-altitude Salang Pass, killing 31 people and injuring scores more with burns.
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