Seventy people were killed when two buses collided on the main road linking the Cameroonian capital Yaounde to the main port Douala, hospital sources said on Monday.
Some of the victims had been decapitated and others had their limbs ripped off in the crash, which occurred on Sunday evening in a village near the town of Edea, around 150 kilometres west of Yaounde, a doctor at Edea regional hospital said.
”Some of the bodies that were recovered had no head, while others were limbless — it was truly horrifying,” he said.
”The Edea hospital morgue was unable to hold all the bodies. We had to take some to Laquintine Hospital in Douala,” he said. The two buses involved in the collision were travelling in opposite directions on the road, which has one lane going in either direction between the inland capital and the economic hub on the Atlantic Douala. They were carrying some 100 passengers between them, according to witnesses.
The buses, both owned by private transport companies, collided head-on after both had overtaken other vehicles ‒ a four-wheel-drive and a logging truck.
The larger of the two buses plunged into a river that runs alongside the road, while all 30 passengers on the smaller bus were killed instantly, witnesses said.
The drivers and passengers in the two vehicles that were overtaken were unhurt. The crash occurred a week after three French soldiers were killed in an accident on the same road, known to be particularly dangerous.
Two of the French soldiers were killed on the spot and a third died after being evacuated to France for treatment, French military officials said. – Sapa-AFP