Near Kaffrine in central Senegal, two buses crashed, leaving at least 40 passengers dead and 87 injured.
On Sunday at 3:15 a.m. (03:15 GMT), the collision happened on the Number 1 national highway.
President Macky Sall declared three days of national mourning and claimed that 40 individuals perished in the “grave” disaster.
The fire brigade stated that the bus, which has a seating capacity of 60, was traveling to Rosso close to the Mauritania border and that it was unclear how many people were on board.
Colonel Cheikh Fall, commander of operations for the National Fire Brigade, told the media that the incident, which injured 87 persons, was “a serious accident.”
According to him, victims were brought to a hospital and medical facility in Kaffrine. According to Fall, the debris and bus wrecks have since been removed, and regular travel has resumed.
Early investigations, according to public prosecutor Cheikh Dieng, indicated that the crash occurred when “a bus assigned to the public transport of people, following the bursting of a tyre, left its route before hitting head-on with another bus coming in the opposite way.”
President Sall expressed his sadness over the unfortunate traffic tragedy on Twitter. He continued, “I send my deepest sympathies to the relatives of the victims and hope the injured a swift recovery.
In a nation where traffic accidents are frequent, experts say that this is one of the highest death tolls from a single incident in recent years. Experts attribute this to a lack of driver discipline, bad roads, and old vehicles.
At least 16 people were murdered and another 15 were hurt when a bus and a refrigerated lorry crashed in western Senegal in October 2020. At the time, local media reported that the truck was transporting fish to Dakar.
