A speeding truck hit three donkeys and rammed into an oncoming tourist vehicle in northern Tanzania, killing 11 people from New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland and Tanzania, police said on Wednesday.
Four other people were seriously injured, including some with broken limbs and bruises, said regional police chief James Kombe.
Kombe said four people from Spain, two from Sweden and one each from New Zealand and Switzerland were killed in the accident. Three Tanzanians also died.
Three of the dead Spaniards have been identified as Javier Felices (30), Oscar Contreras (30) and Maria Jose Yllanes (22). They were volunteers for the aid group Engineers without Borders, from the southern Spanish city of Seville.
The bodies of the victims now lie in the mortuary of the Mount Meru hospital, in Arusha, Kombe said.
”We are also in contact with embassies to make transport arrangements for the victims to their home countries,” Kombe said.
The accident occurred on Tuesday as the group was driving into Tanzania from neighbouring Kenya to visit some of Tanzania’s national parks, Kombe said.
”It was a head-on collision. Eight people were killed on the spot and two others died in hospital,” Kombe said. ”Another victim died overnight.”
The accident occurred after a speeding truck, laden with farm produce, hit three donkeys crossing the road.
”The driver struggled to regain control of the truck and slammed into the vehicle ferrying the tourists from the border with Kenya,” Kombe said.
The accident occurred at a bend on the road. About 24 hours later, rescue workers were still trying to remove the onion truck from the road.
The injured remain in the hospital. Two Spaniards were transferred to Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre. A British woman was later flown to neighbouring Kenya for further treatment.
Still admitted at the Mount Meru hospital is a Kenyan truck mechanic and a Cameroon national working for the United Nations tribunal trying suspected masterminds of the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda. — Sapa-AP