It was a black day in Zambia as
53 people were killed in a high-speed collision between a bus and a truck in
Zambia on Thursday.
The government said the accident
was one of the country’s worst-ever traffic accidents.
The bus carrying 73 passengers
hurtled into an oncoming truck, leaving bloodied bodies and wreckage on a main
road north of Lusaka.
“I can confirm that 53 people
have died in the accident,” AFP quotes Harry Kalaba, an official in the Vice
President’s office, as saying at the crash site 100 kilometres (60 miles) north
of the capital.
“There was serious speeding by
all the vehicles involved,” Kalaba said.
A survivor of the crash, Ackim
Shawa who spoke on his hospital bed told AFP that, the Zambia Postal Service
bus — which also runs passenger transport services — had been taking passengers
from the Copperbelt mining province to Lusaka.
“While closing in on its final
destination the bus had been trying to swerve to avoid another oncoming
vehicle.”
Fifty-one people on the bus died,
while the truck driver and his assistant were also killed.
Pictures from the scene show
bloodied and lifeless bodies lying next to the mangled wreckage of the
vehicles.