38 Dead in Sudan Road Crash
At least 38 people died in Sudan Tuesday in one of the country's worst road accidents in years when a bus collided with a truck, police said, blaming the accident on speeding.
"Because of a crash this morning between a bus and a truck south of El Gutaina town in White Nile state, 38 people died and others were injured," a police statement said.
It did not give the number of people hurt but said they were taken to hospital in El Gutaina, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Khartoum, to be treated for various injuries.
The bus was travelling from Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman to El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, when it collided with the truck heading the opposite way, police said.
"The accident happened because of the high speeds of the two vehicles," said traffic police General Abdurahman Hassan Abdurahman.
After the crash, Abdurahman said police would step up enforcement by distributing 25 additional radar units to monitor speeds on the impoverished nation's highways.
Last December 33 people were killed and 24 injured when two inter-city buses collided about halfway between Khartoum and Wad Medani, southeast of the capital.
That crash followed complaints by city bus drivers in Khartoum that Sudan's surging inflation and sinking currency had driven maintenance costs out of control.
Last October 13 people died and 26 were injured when a passenger bus blew a tire and collided with a minibus on the road to Wad Medani.
A crash between a bus and a truck south of Khartoum killed 21 people in April 2009.
Source: Agence France Presse
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