At least 16 Bangladeshis died in a terrible road crash that claimed 22 lives and injured 25 others at Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates yesterday, police and Bangladesh embassy officials in the UAE said.
Latiful Haque, a labour councillor at Bangladesh mission there, told The Daily Star over the phone that they had identified 16 of the dead as Bangladeshis and one as an Indian.
He suspected the rest too were Bangladeshis.
Early in the morning, the bus carrying them collided with a truck laden with sand and other construction materials when the workers were on their way to work in a camp, said Latiful.
The accident happened around 7:45am (local time), said Brigadier Hussain Ahmad Al Harithi, director of Abu Dhabi Police Traffic and Patrol Directorate, states Gulf News.
The bus was carrying 46 people, says Gulf News, while Khaleej Times reports the number to be 55.
“I was driving to our camp when I saw a concrete-laden truck crash into a bus coming from the opposite direction. The bus was smashed beyond recognition. I don’t think any of the workers could have survived this incident,” said an eyewitness to Gulf News.
Other witnesses suggested the workers died from suffocation in the pile of sand and construction materials.
An eyewitness told the Khaleej Times that the victims worked for a maintenance and contracting company that had a camp in the area.
Al Ain police deployed helicopters to rescue the injured workers who were buried under pile of sand at the site, reports Gulf News. They were transferred to Al Ain, Al Tawam, Al Noor and NMC hospitals.
Latiful Haque said some of the bodies of the dead had been kept in the morgue and others had been sent to nearby hospitals as there was not enough room in the morgue.
He added embassy officials were concentrating on the dead and had not had time to check-up on the injured. However, they were being properly treated at Incentive Care Units of different hospitals.
-With The Daily Star input
