Kabul, Aug 20: At least 64 commuters have been killed and three others sustained injuries in a deadly road mishap in western Afghanistan’s Herat province, head of the rescue department in the province, Abdul Zahir Noorzai, said Wednesday.
The accident took place on Tuesday night after a passenger bus collided with a motorbike and a mini-truck on a road linking the neighbouring Iran to Herat city in Afghanistan, Xinhua News Agency reported, quoting the official.
The majority of the victims, including women and children, were Afghan refugees who returned from Iran to settle in their homeland, Afghanistan, according to the official. In the meantime, another official, on the condition of anonymity, said that the passenger bus caught fire and many bodies could not be recognised.
The number of the victims, according to the official, could go up as the collection of information continues. Earlier this month, twin road accidents left seven commuters dead and injured another in northern Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province, said a news release of the provincial police office.
In the first accident, which took place in Shahr-i-Bazarg district, five travellers lost their lives and another was badly injured, the news release said. In a similar accident, two commuters were killed after their car turned turtle in the neighbouring Raghistan district on the same day, it said.
In a similar incident on July 31, one person was killed and 14 others injured after their vehicle veered off the road and turned turtle in central Afghanistan’s Bamiyan province, the state-owned Bakhtar News Agency reported.
The mishap occurred in the Kotal Bukak area of Yakawlang district, where a mini-bus overturned due to a technical fault, killing one traveller on the spot and injuring 14 others, including women and children, Bakhtar quoted Mohammad Khawani Rasa, provincial police spokesman, as saying. According to Rasa, all the injured were transported to nearby health centres for treatment.
IANS