21 dead in bus collision with tanker in Afghanistan

KABUL: Twenty-one people were killed and 11 injured in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province on Sunday when a bus collided with a tanker and a motorbike, a provincial official said.

“Early in the morning today, based on the information we have received so far, 21 people were killed and 11 were injured in a traffic accident between a passenger bus, a tanker and a motorbike,” provincial governor spokesman Mohammad Qasim Riyaz told AFP.

The accident occurred on Sunday morning in Gerashk district of Helmand province on the main highway between southern Kandahar and western Herat provinces, a statement said.

A motorbike crashed into a passenger bus, which then hit a fuel tanker on the opposite side of the road, said Qudratullah, a traffic official in Helmand. An investigation into the accident was underway, he added.

Eleven of the 38 injured people were transferred to hospitals with serious injuries, said Hazratullah Haqqani, a spokesman for the Helmand police chief.

Traffic accidents are common in Afghanistan, mainly due to poor road conditions and driver carelessness.