KABUL, Afghanistan (BN24) — The death toll from a fiery bus crash in western Afghanistan has climbed to 79 people, including 19 children, after two survivors succumbed to their injuries, an interim Taliban administration official announced Wednesday.
The deadly collision occurred late Tuesday in Herat province’s Guzara district when a passenger bus carrying Afghan deportees from Iran struck a motorcycle and then collided with a fuel truck, triggering a massive fire that engulfed the vehicles, according to Abdul Mateen Qani, spokesman for the interim Interior Ministry.
Mohammad Janan Moqadas, chief physician at the military hospital treating survivors, told reporters in Kabul that many victims were burned beyond recognition, complicating identification efforts. Only three people survived the inferno, witnesses said.
The bus was transporting Afghans recently expelled from Iran to the capital Kabul when the accident occurred, provincial spokesman Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi confirmed. The central government has ordered a full investigation into the incident.
Witness accounts described scenes of horror as the collision sparked an intense blaze that prevented rescue attempts. Akbar Tawakoli, 34, who observed the crash, said the fire was so severe that would-be rescuers could not approach within 50 meters of the burning vehicles.
“There was a lot of fire and a lot of screaming, but we couldn’t even get within 50 metres to rescue anyone,” Tawakoli said. “Only three people were saved from the bus. They were also on fire and their clothes were burned.”
Another witness, identified only as Abdullah, 25, expressed grief over the victims’ demographics, saying most passengers were women and children returning to Afghanistan after being deported from Iran.
Cleanup crews worked throughout Wednesday to remove the charred remains of the bus and twisted wreckage from the accident site, according to journalists at the scene.
The interim Taliban government issued a statement expressing condolences for what it called a tragic loss of Afghan lives. “It is with deep sorrow that we mourn the loss of numerous Afghan lives and the injuries sustained in a tragic bus collision and subsequent fire in Herat province last night,” the statement read.
The accident highlights the dangerous conditions faced by Afghan deportees traveling on the country’s poorly maintained road network. More than 1.5 million Afghans have returned from Iran and Pakistan this year alone, according to the United Nations migration agency, as both neighboring countries have intensified deportation efforts after decades of hosting Afghan refugees.
Many deportees arrive with limited resources and face dire conditions in a country struggling with widespread poverty and mass unemployment following the Taliban’s return to power in 2021.
The state-run Bakhtar News Agency characterized Tuesday’s crash as one of Afghanistan’s deadliest traffic accidents in recent years. The country has experienced several major transportation disasters involving fuel tankers and passenger vehicles.
In December 2023, two separate bus crashes involving fuel tankers killed 52 people across different provinces. Three months later, another collision in Helmand province claimed 20 lives. In late 2022, a tanker truck overturned in the treacherous Salang Pass north of Kabul, igniting a fire that killed 31 people.
Afghanistan’s road safety record remains poor due to inadequate infrastructure maintenance, limited traffic enforcement and the prevalence of aging vehicles on major transportation routes connecting the country’s provinces to the capital.
