Photo: CHEIKH DIENG/AFP/Getty Images
For: The opinion Updated Jan 08, 2023, 11:31 am EST
At least 40 people died this Sunday and 78 were injured by the collision of two buses in Senegal, as reported by the authorities, who decreed three days of national mourning.
The accident occurred near the town of Sikilo, in the Kaffrine region, more than 200 kilometers southeast of the capital Dakar, at around 03:30 local time (same GMT) on National Highway 1, reported the Republic Prosecutor’s Office.
“According to the first elements of the judicial police investigation, a bus attached to public passenger transport, after a tire burst, left its trajectory before colliding head-on with another bus that was coming in the opposite direction,” the Prosecutor’s Office explained in a statement.
After the serious accident, the Senegalese president, Macky Sall, decreed “a three-day national mourning beginning January 9“.
“On the same date, an inter-ministerial council will be held to take firm measures on road safety and public passenger transport,” Sall added on his Twitter social network account.
According to local media, a tire blew out on a bus coming from Tambacounda (south) bound for Dakar, while the other wrecked vehicle came from the capital and headed for Vélingara (south).
With information from Efe.
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