18 killed by speeding bus at accident scene

 

Singida Regional Police Commander Geofrey Kamwela.PHOTO|FILE 

By Gasper Andrew ,The Citizen Correspondent

In Summary

Coast Regional Police Commander Ulrich Matei said the bus burst into flames after a rear tyre burst.

Singida. Four police officers were among 18 people who lost their lives on Monday night after a speeding bus hit them as they tried to retrieve the body of a pedestrian who had been killed in an earlier road accident.

Six more people are admitted at Puma mission hospital in critical condition.

Singida Regional Police Commander Geofrey Kamwela said the bus belonged to Sumry Bus Company. The Singida accident comes after a string of deadly crashes this year. The latest accident took place at around 9.30pm at Utaho Village in Ikungi District. A similar accident happened earlier this month in Lindi.

According to Mr Kamwela, the bus crashed into the officers and villagers as they carried away the body of a man who had been knocked down by a truck.

Speaking at the Regional Hospital Mortuary, Mungaa Ward Councillor Matheo Alex said a truck hit 24-year-old Jaredi Zephania of Minyinga Village at 7.30pm and he died on the spot. “Villagers thronged the scene, watching as the police were preparing to carry the body to the roadside,” Mr Alex said.

Eye witness accounts have it that the officers parked in the middle of the road. The bus driver seemingly mistook the police car to be that of robbers waiting to hijack his vehicle – which is apparently common in the area.

Said Councillor Alex: “The driver of the police car dimmed his lights, confusing the bus driver, and he drove towards the villagers, killing them on the spot.” The surviving officers abandoned their vehicle at the scene.

In another development, 60 people cheated death in Bagamoyo District after their bus in from Mbeya to Arusha caught fire at Makole village on the Chalinze-Segera highway. Most of the property belonging to Hood Bus Company was destroyed.

Coast Regional Police Commander Ulrich Matei said the bus burst into flames after a rear tyre burst. The passengers escaped through the doors and windows and some of them suffered minor injuries.

Eleven people were killed and 44 others seriously wounded last week after their bus rammed into a house in Simiyu Region.

Authorities in the region reported that the accident – involving Luheye Express, which operates between Bunda District in Mara Region and Mwanza – took place just before noon after the driver lost control of the speeding bus, hit a tree and rammed into a house.

At the end of March this year, two accidents claimed 35 lives within 24 hours at the end of last month. At least 21 people died in Rufiji District while 14 were killed at Makupa Village in Same District, Kilimanjaro Region, in an almost similar head-on-collision.