No fewer than fifteen people died on Friday night in a mini-bus accident in central Guinea, local authorities have confirmed to reporters.
Lieutenant Colonel Idrissa Camara, the prefect of the nearby city of Kouroussa, confirmed on Friday that; ‘A mini-bus full of passengers accompanying a body in Bissikirima, near Dabola (in central Guinea), overturned, killing 14 people on the spot’.
‘A fifteenth victim died during his transfer to hospital,’ he said.
He said 11 bodies had been burned because a can of petrol inside the vehicle caught fire.
Five people were injured, three of them seriously, said an official of the Dabola transporters’ union.
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They were taken to the regional hospital in Kankan, a health worker added.
Deadly road accidents are frequent in Guinea, often caused by careless driving and poor road and vehicle conditions. At least 30 people died in a multiple traffic accidents in early June.
In another report, no fewer than seven people were killed and 16 others badly burned when a tanker truck exploded in a village in the western Democratic Republic of Congo, a provincial chief said on Thursday.
The blast occurred overnight in the village of Mbuba, about 120 kilometres (75 miles) west of the capital Kinshasa, Kongo Central provincial governor Guy Bandu tweeted.
Mbuba lies on the busy RN1 highway linking Kinshasa to the ports of Matadi and Boma.
More than 50 people were killed in a fuel-tanker blast in the same village in October 2018.
‘It is high time to take bold and drastic measures to strengthen transport regulations, especially for flammable products, to end to this cycle of accidents,’ the provincial governor tweeted.
Later in the day, Bandu gave the toll of seven dead and 16 badly burned in the latest blast, stressing that the figures were provisional.