HARARE, Nov 16, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – At least 42 passengers have been
confirmed dead, Zimbabwe police said Friday, after a suspected gas tank
exploded on a bus, with pictures showing the burnt-out wreckage of the
vehicle.
“At the moment we know that more than 42 people died,” police spokeswoman
Charity Charamba told AFP after the accident late on Thursday, with state
media reporting a gas tank belonging to a passenger was believed to have
exploded.
“Our police officers are at the scene,” Charamba added.
The state-owned Herald newspaper said on its Twitter feed that “it is
suspected a gas tank belonging to one of the passengers caused the inferno in
the bus.
“Dozens have been confirmed dead and several others injured through
burns.”
The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation published photographs showing the
destroyed vehicle on a highway from the South African border crossing to the
second city Bulawayo.
Last week, 47 people were killed when two buses collided on a road between
the capital Harare and the eastern town of Rusape.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa said road safety had to be improved after
that crash.
Traffic accidents are common in Zimbabwe, where roads are riddled with
potholes due to years of underfunding and neglect, and driving standards can
be poor.
In June last year, 43 people were killed in a bus crash in the north,
along the highway leading to neighbouring Zambia.