'Many dead' in Mbale-Tirinyi road crash

WARNING: Disturbing details

ACCIDENT

Most of the occupants of a commuter taxi were reported dead in a Sunday evening crash also involving a YY bus along the Mbale-Tirinyi highway in Busembatia on the eastern Uganda route, New Vision learnt.

All the passengers of the bus were "safe", the management of YY Coaches and Courier Services said in a statement.

"Police are still working to ascertain the names and identities of the dead taxi passengers. May their souls rest in peace. We shall update you as and when we get more information," the statement said.

While a number of bodies were seen at the scene, an official number of those killed was not immediately available.

Details of the accident were scant, but a source who drove past the scene said "many lives" had been lost.

"Passed [by] the accident scene a while ago. Many lives in the taxi lost," the source informed New Vision via text message.

While the cause of the deadly crash has yet to be established, New Vision understands that the commuter taxi was trying to overtake the bus, before ramming into it seconds later.

Video footage reportedly taken from scene of the crash was shared on various platforms. In the clip, which New Vision saw but whose authenticity it could not immediately verify, a male voice is heard saying: "It is YY again. Banange it is YY again. There in the taxi [sic], all of them have died."

A scene of commotion is captured in the brief video, as scores of people are seen around the bus by the road side.

Meanwhile, pictures of the mangled remains of the commuter taxi illustrated the degree of the crash.

As the bodies of the victims were being pulled from the wreckage, people held their heads in shock while others wept incessantly.

An overpowering sense of déjà vu lingered ubiquitously as an air of death hang heavily over the scene. It is the second such fatality involving a YY bus in less than a week.

On Monday, two people were killed and more than 40 others got injured when the bus lost control and overturned at Busei B village, three kilometres along the Iganga-Bugiri highway.


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