Afghanistan bus crash kills 25, injures 27: authorities

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Afghans stand at the accident site after a passenger bus overturned on the Kabul-Kandahar highway, on the outskirts of Maidan Wardak province in Afghanistan on August 27. — AFP
Afghans stand at the accident site after a passenger bus overturned on the Kabul-Kandahar highway, on the outskirts of Maidan Wardak province in Afghanistan on August 27. — AFP

At least 25 people were killed and 27 injured when a bus overturned in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, authorities told AFP, a week after the country’s deadliest road accident in years.

The crash happened “due to the driver’s negligence” on a highway near the capital Kabul, leading to the southern city of Kandahar, interior ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani said.

Qani said 25 people were killed and 27 were being treated at hospitals for injuries, the extent of which was not specified.

Deadly traffic crashes are common in Afghanistan, due in part to poor roads after decades of conflict, dangerous driving on highways and a lack of regulation.

Last Tuesday, 78 people, including more than a dozen children, were killed in western Herat province when a bus carrying migrants returning from Iran collided with a motorcycle and a truck, according to authorities.

In December last year, two bus accidents involving a fuel tanker and a truck on a highway through central Afghanistan killed at least 52.

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