At least 32 people were killed and others injured in two road accidents in Turkey on Saturday, according to local officials. Each caused 16 deaths.
Although they are different accidents, the resemblance between them is striking. In both cases, rescue teams were attending to an initial accident when another runaway vehicle struck the scene. Below is more information on both cases:
1 in 1 rescuers work at a road accident scene in Turkey — Photo: Ihlas News Agency via Portal
Rescue teams work at a road accident site in Turkey — Photo: Ihlas News Agency via Portal
At around 10:45 a.m. local time (4:45 a.m. GMT), a passenger bus between the cities of Gaziantep and Nizip crashed, Gaziantep provincial governor Davut Gül said. In this accident, 16 people died and another 20 were injured.
“While firefighters, medical teams and other colleagues were carrying out the rescue, another bus crashed 200 meters from here. The second bus slid to this point, hitting the downed teams and injured people,” Gul said.
Among the dead were three firefighters, two rescuers and two employees of a Turkish news agency. According to the Turkish press agency DHA, a vehicle belonging to a journalist team was also hit.
A truck ran over a crowd near a gas station in Derik district, about 250 km from the first case, killing 16 people and injuring 29. (See video at the beginning of this report)
According to video obtained by Portal showing the green vehicle colliding with speeding vehicles and pedestrians, the hitandrun happened as emergency services were visiting the scene of another crash.
Turkey’s Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said eight of those injured in the accident are in critical condition.