Bus and truck collide in Saudi's Madinah leaving 4 dead, 48 injured

Riyadh: A bus and a truck collided at the Al-Hijrah highway, Madinah Province of Saudi Arabia, leaving four people dead and 48 injured, Arab News reported. Authorities reported on Friday that the crash was happened near the town of Al-Yutamah, around 90km from Madinah city. The bus was carrying 45 passengers.

Some of the injured were treated at the spot before they were being shifted to local hospitals. The efforts to deal with the incident took over 40 ambulance and advanced care units from Madinah. Eight units from Makkah and three more from Qassim also joined the rescue effort, Khaled Al-Sehali, a Saudi Red Crescent Authority spokesperson, said.

Photographs from the accident spot show a red Bonluck bus with severe damage to the right front and side with a torn-off windshield. The exact time of the accident is not clear yet, but Ambulances were reportedly summoned around 11.27 pm on Thursday.

The busy highway is one of the main routes that connects the provinces of Makkah and Madinah. It is the main route for pilgrims to visit both cities. In 2019, a similar accident happened on this highway near the village of Al-Akhal after a pilgrims' bus collided with a loader. That incident had taken 35 lives of pilgrims. Saudi had recorded 12,317 traffic deaths in 2019 as per World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates.