Twenty Afghans were killed and 33 injured Thursday when a speeding bus lost control and overturned on a dangerous southern highway, traffic police said. The bus crashed on the main road linking the capital Kabul with the biggest southern city, Kandahar, in the province of Zabul. “Unfortunately, 20 of our countrymen have been killed and 33 others have been injured in the accident in Zabul province,” the director of the traffic department in Kandahar province, Mohammad Ullah Khan, told AFP.
“Most of the injured are in a critical condition and have been taken to the nearby hospital.” Witnesses described the coach as a mangled wreck. The Kandahar to Kabul highway is seen as one of the most dangerous in the country, not only because of the high volume of traffic and erratic driving, but because the Taliban regularly stop and search vehicles.
Road construction is a major project throughout Afghanistan but nearly 10 years after the 2001 US-led invasion brought down the Taliban regime, the country is yet to complete a national road network or rail system.
