Truck and Bus With Athletes Crash in Morocco, and 33 Die
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Version 0 of 1. RABAT, Morocco — A fiery head-on collision between a semitrailer truck and a bus carrying a delegation of young athletes in southern Morocco on Friday killed 33 people and injured seven, according to the state news agency and local news media reports. The crash took place just before sunrise at 7 a.m. in the Chbika district, near Tan-Tan, a southern desert city, the news agency reported. A video posted by the French-language newspaper L’Economiste shows the flaming wreckage of the tour bus, which caught fire after a collision with what the newspaper identified as a tanker truck carrying hydrocarbons. The video shows people wandering around the burning hulk in a desert landscape. According to details provided by the Le360.ma news site, the bus was carrying young athletes and officials from the Ministry of Youth and Sports who were involved in a national sports competition. Les Inspirations Éco, a newspaper, reported on its website that the athletes were from the northern town of Bouznika and from Laayoune, a city farther to the south in Western Sahara, a territory controlled by Morocco. It added that the celebrated 10-kilometer runner Hassan Issengar, 31, was among the dead. According to the State Department website, traffic accidents are a “significant hazard” in Morocco. Although there are modern highways between the main cities, the rest of the country is served by two-lane roads, many of them in poor condition. |