2 highway crashes in Afghanistan leave dozens dead, dozens more hurt

Two highway crashes in southeastern Afghanistan killed a combined total of 50 people and injured 76, a government spokesman said Thursday.

One was a collision between a bus and an oil tanker on the Kabul-Kandahar highway late Wednesday, said Hafiz Omar, a spokesman for the governor of Ghazni province.

The other, also late Wednesday and in the same province, was in a different area of the same highway, which connects the Afghan capital with the south.

Hamidullah Nisar, the provincial head of the Taliban-run Information and Culture Department, told the Reuters news agency the other accident involved a cargo truck, adding that some of those injured in both collisions were in critical condition. 

Omar said many of the injured were taken to hospitals in Ghazni and patients in more serious condition were transferred to Kabul. Women and children were among the casualties, he said.

Authorities were in the process of handing over the bodies to families, Omar said.

Crash survivor Abdullah Khan, who was being treated in a Ghazni hospital, said he didn’t know how many people had either died or were injured.

“I got out from the bus myself and heard the sound of moaning. There was blood everywhere. Some people had head injuries and others had hurt their legs.”

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