Afghanistan | 21 people died and 38 were injured in the road collision

Such high numbers are particularly common in Afghanistan, where roads are particularly dangerous.

“In the early hours of this morning, 21 people were killed in a road accident between a bus, a tanker truck and a motorcycle in Helmand province,” the governor's spokesman, Mohammed Qasim Riaz, told AFP.

Thirty-eight people were injured, the provincial information department later said, updating an earlier report that 11 were injured.

A tanker truck carrying petrol collided and the vehicles burst into flames. The governor's spokesman said the bodies of many of the victims were charred.

Photos posted on social media by the Information Department showed burnt vehicles and the cab of a tanker truck engulfed in flames. Officials quickly repaired the road.

The accident took place on the main road connecting Herat in western Afghanistan to Kandahar (south) and then the capital Kabul.

According to transport officials in Helmand province, the bus traveling from Herat to Kabul first collided with a motorcycle in Krishq district, killing the driver and his passenger.

Then the bus driver lost control and was heading towards Herat from Kandahar and collided with a tanker coming in the opposite direction.

3 people who were traveling in the tanker and 16 people who were traveling in the bus died.

Of the 38 injured, 11 were seriously injured, the Information Department said. Some of the lightly injured had already left the hospital in the afternoon.

After four decades of fighting, traffic on Afghanistan's roads that cross high mountain ranges is in dire straits.

Also, drivers often do not respect driving rules.

In December 2022, 31 people died when a tanker overturned and set fire to other vehicles at the Salang Pass (centre) in the Hindu Kush mountain range, more than 3800 meters above sea level.