Road drama –
Afghanistan cries 78 lives mowed in a gigantic fire
A coach carrying migrants struck a fuel truck near Herat. The emergency services arrived two hours after the drama.
Security agents are on the spot at the place of a bus accident in the Guzara district, in the province of Herat.
AFP/MOHSEN MY WIFE
Nearly 80 people, including a majority of Iran’s return migrants, died on Tuesday evening in one of the most serious road accidents in recent years in Afghanistan.
A coach entered “violently” collision with a motorcycle and a truck that transported fuel, causing a fire, said the Guzara district police in the western west of Iranaccusing the driver of the “excessive speed” and “negligence” coach driver.
The latest assessment communicated Wednesday by the army reported 78 people, after two of the three survivors identified died of their injuries.
Local security forces believe that 17 to 19 of the victims were children, according to various provisional assessments.
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Buriest road accident
At the scene of the accident, near the city of Herat, an AFP correspondent saw the coal carcass of the coach a few hours after the accident, as well as the debris of the other two vehicles.
“There was a big fire, the firefighters took two hours to arrive,” Akbar Tawakoli told AKBar a 34 -year -old witness. “Many people were shouting but we couldn’t approach 50 meters to save anyone.”
This is one of the deadliest road accidents in recent years, according toBakhtar official press agency.
“When we saw that all the remains were charred, that no one could be saved, I was very saddened because most of the coach passengers were children and women,” said another witness, Abdallah, 25, without surname.
The remains are not identifiable, regretted the chief doctor of the Al-Farouq military hospital, Mohammed Janane Moqadas.
From Iran to Kabul
The Taliban government has expressed its “great sadness” and called the “competent transport authorities to promptly gather the information concerning this accident”, according to a statement published by its spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid.
The coach was carrying Afghans recently returned from Iran to Kabul, more than 1000 km away, said the spokesman for the provincial governor, Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi, to AFP.
“All the passengers were migrants who had mounted on the vehicle in Islam Qala”, a border post with Iran, “he added.
Iran gave until the beginning of September to the four million undocumented Afghans present on its territory to return to their country.
Frequent accident
Tens of thousands of people cross the border every day, including many children, often in the greatest destitution, according to the International Organization for Migration (OIM).
Road accidents are frequent in Afghanistan, partly because of the poor condition of the roads after decades of conflict, the dangerous driving of motorists and the lack of regulation.
In December, two coach accidents involving a tank truck and a truck on a road crossing the center of the country had left at least 52 dead.
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