A passenger bus carrying Afghan returnees from Iran struck a motorbike and a gas truck, triggering an enormous fireplace.
The demise toll from a bus crash in western Afghanistan has risen to 79, after two survivors died from their accidents, an interim Taliban administration official stated.
The incident occurred late on Tuesday in Herat province’s Guzara district, when a passenger bus carrying Afghan returnees from Iran struck a motorbike and a gas truck, triggering an enormous fireplace.
No less than 19 kids had been amongst these killed, Abdul Mateen Qani, spokesman for the interim Inside Ministry, informed reporters in Kabul on Wednesday.
Mohammad Janan Moqadas, chief doctor on the army hospital, stated many our bodies had been too badly burned to be recognized.
A journalist with the AFP information company reported that cleanup crews had been engaged on Wednesday to take away the burned-out bus and the twisted wreckage of the opposite autos.
“There was a number of fireplace… There was a number of screaming, however we couldn’t even get inside 50 metres to rescue anybody,” witness Akbar Tawakoli, 34, informed AFP. “Solely three folks had been saved from the bus. They had been additionally on fireplace and their garments had been burned.”
Abdullah, 25, one other witness, informed AFP, “I used to be very saddened that a lot of the passengers on the bus had been kids and ladies.”
The bus was transporting Afghans not too long ago expelled from Iran to the capital, Kabul, provincial spokesman Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi stated. The central authorities has ordered an investigation.
“It’s with deep sorrow that we mourn the lack of quite a few Afghan lives and the accidents sustained in a tragic bus collision and subsequent fireplace in Herat province final evening,” it stated in an announcement.
Greater than 1.5 million Afghans have returned from Iran and Pakistan this yr alone, based on the United Nations migration company, as each nations step up deportations after many years of internet hosting Afghan refugees. Many arrive with little means and face dire situations in a rustic battling poverty and mass unemployment.
The state-run Bakhtar Information Company described the incident as one in every of Afghanistan’s deadliest accidents in recent times.
In December 2023, two separate bus crashes involving tankers killed 52 folks, whereas in March 2024, one other 20 died in a collision in Helmand province. In late 2022, a tanker overturned within the Salang Move, igniting a fireplace that killed 31.
