LASHKAR GAH: At least 21 people were killed and 38 injured in the early hours of Sunday morning when a bus collided with a fuel tanker truck and burst into flames in southern Afghanistan.

“Twenty-one people were killed... in a traffic accident between a passenger bus, a tanker and a motorbike” on the main highway through Grishk district in southern Helmand province, said Mohammad Qasim Riyaz, a spokesman for the provincial governor.

Of the 38 people injured, 11 were seriously hurt, according to the provincial information department.

The accident occurred in the early hours of the morning on a key highway that sees traffic between the western city of Herat through southern provinces to the capital Kabul, provincial officials said.

The passenger bus was travelling from Herat to Kabul when it first collided with a motorbike carrying two people, killing both riders, Helmand traffic management officials said, according to the information department.

The bus driver lost control and crashed with a tanker truck travelling in the opposite direction, sparking a fire.

The accident killed three people on the tanker and 16 bus passengers.

“When the bus hit the tanker, it pierced the tank, which burst into flames,” said one of the survivors, Ghulam Sarwar, admitted at a hospital in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah.

Images shared by the information department showed charred, twisted metal scattered across the highway and the crushed cabin of the tanker.

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2024