At least 30 killed in Uganda road accident

KAMPALA - At least 30 travellers from Rwanda were killed when their Nairobi-bound bus hit a truck in the southwest of Uganda, officials said.

The vehicles collided on the roads of the hilly Kabale district close to the Rwandan border, killing 25 people on the spot while another five died later in hospital, officials said. The reason for the accident was unclear.

"We have counted 30 bodies," Cyprian Gatete, Rwanda's assistant commissioner of police told Reuters by telephone from a Ugandan hospital where the bodies had been taken.

"There were 20 survivors, the majority of them are in critical condition," he said. The survivors are being flown back to hospitals in Rwanda, he added.

Accidents are frequent on Uganda's poor roads and the government last month introduced a regulation to limit the speed for buses, which also often carry too much load.

The crash is the third to involve a bus and truck in the last two years. At least 40 people died in a similar accident last year when a bus and a fuel truck collided and exploded.

- REUTERS