Road accidents claiming many lives - police

Police have expressed concern over fatal road accidents frequently occurring on the highways, especially that between the eastern town of Jinja and the capital, Kampala. At least 30 people died in the latest such accident on Saturday. Police Inspector of Traffic James Mukooli said the latest accident, like many in Uganda, had been partly the result of reckless driving. Another frequently cited cause of accidents was the fact that counterfeit driving licences were easily obtained in Uganda, he added. The minibus involved in Saturday's accident, police added, had collided with a fuel tanker in the Mabira forest, 60 km from Kampala. The vehicle was overloaded because Ugandan minibuses are licensed to carry only 14 people. Initial reports said 20 people had been burned alive when the tanker exploded. "The minibus was speeding and tried to overtake on a blind corner," Mukooli said. He added that many of the bodies were dismembered, rendering an accurate estimate of the death toll impossible without better forensic equipment. Mukooli told IRIN that the fire brigade was ill-equipped to deal with such a large fire, because it lacked containers large enough to carry water in sufficient quantities to deal with such emergencies. "They had to keep running to the nearest water source to refill," he noted. Three survivors, two women and a young boy, were rushed to hospital, and by last night were said to be in a stable condition. Last September, 50 people died in a collision, while 70 people died in July 2002 in an accident, similar to the latest one, on that occasion involving a bus and a fuel truck. According to police records, there were over 15,000 road accidents in 2002, killing more than 2,000 people.