WORLD
Afghan bus crash `kills 30` in Kandahar
Baku, April 26 (AZERTAC). At least 30 people have been killed as a bus collided with an oil tanker and burst into flames in Afghanistan`s Kandahar province, officials say, according to BBC.
The accident took place on the key Kabul-Kandahar highway in the Maiwand district.
The accident happened before dawn on Friday in the Maiwand district of Kandahar province as passengers on the packed bus were travelling to join “Neishtar”.
The Neishtar season lasts just 15 to 20 days each April, when villagers from across southern Afghanistan work in vast poppy fields during one of the most lucrative times of the year for casual laborers.
Neishtar is the small lance used to make incisions on poppy plants to let out the resin, which dries into solid opium residue.
Women and children are among the dead and officials say that most bodies are badly burned.
Accidents are common in Afghanistan which has some of the most dangerous roads in the world.
One report suggested the tanker had been left on the road having been attacked by the Taliban, but it is unclear when such an attack might have taken place and if the tanker was still burning when the bus crashed into it.
“Tragically, around 4 am, a passenger bus collided with a fuel tanker,” Javid Faisal, the Kandahar governor`s spokesman, told AFP.
“As a result, we have 30 dead, mostly men, and 10 injured.”
He denied reports that the tanker was set on fire by Taliban insurgents and then left burning in the middle of a road.
Last September at least 50 people were killed after a bus and a fuel tanker collided in the eastern Afghan province of Ghazni.