AT LEAST 23 people have died after a bus collided with a lorry in eastern Tanzania on Friday, the police said.

A police chief in the eastern region of Morogoro, Fortunatus Muslim, said the incident occurred in Melela Kibaoni, 200 kilometres west of the coastal city and economic hub Dar es Salaam.

“The truck driver, who was heading from the Dar es Salaam port to the Democratic Republic of Congo, was overtaking a motorbike when the two vehicles collided head-on,” he said.

The bus was travelling in the other direction from the western city of Mbeya to the coastal city of Tanga.

The presidency late last night said 22 people had died and another 38 were injured.

One of the injured people has since died.

“Three injured have been transferred to Muhimbili National Hospital in Dar es Salaam for further treatment,” Sabas said.

President Samia Suluhu Hassan presented her condolences on Twitter and urged “road users to adhere to traffic rules”.

Tanzania has seen a spate of fatal traffic incidents.

On Monday, four people were killed in a coach accident outside the southwestern town of Tunduma, near the Zambian border, on its way to Dar es Salaam.

In May 2017, 35 people — 32 of them schoolchildren — were killed in a bus crash. The vehicle had been speeding.

Two years earlier, 42 people were killed in a collision between a coach and a lorry.

Still worse was a 2006 accident that saw a 26-seater bus carrying 74 passengers veer off the road near the northern town of Arusha and plunge off a bridge into the river, killing 54 people.

© AFP 2022