Seventeen people were killed in a Sunday bus accident in northern Morocco, according to a new report obtained Monday ministerial source. The bus has returned, for some unknown reason, near the city of Taza, local authorities said, which initially reported a death toll of eight. This report climbed Monday to 17 dead and 36 wounded, said an official in the Ministry of Health.
The wounded were all hospitalized and an investigation was opened to determine the circumstances of the accident, the authorities said. On an image broadcast on his Twitter account by public channel 2M, the bus, lying on its right side, appears to be beheaded by the violence of the shock. The interior looks more like a pile of scrap metal.
ارتفاع حصيلة حادث "باب مرزوقة" الاليم (تازة): وفاة 17 شخصا وإصابة 33 آخرين بجروح متفاوتة الخطورة جراء انقلاب حافلة لنقل الركاب. pic.twitter.com/RFd8osadS7
- 2M.ma (@ 2MInteractive) December 2, 2019The scourge of road mortality
Nearly 3,500 people die each year in accidents on the roads of the kingdom, a country of 35 million people. The authorities have implemented various measures to try to combat the scourge of road safety, especially in the wake of the worst bus accident in the kingdom's history (42 deaths), which occurred in 2012.
A "national strategy for road safety" has been launched with the aim of halving the number of accidents by 2026. This accident in Morocco occurred on the same day as another particularly bloody road drama in Tunisia, where at least 26 people died on Sunday when their bus fell into a ravine in northwestern Ayn Snoussi.