At least 13 year-end vacationers were killed in central and western Bangladesh in two highway accidents Friday, police and witnesses told DPA. The first accident happened as a speeding bus rammed a tourist coach carrying vacationing families and knocked it into an irrigation canal, killing seven. Several others were injured in the mishap which occurred in Narsingdi district 35 kilometers east of the capital Dhaka. Six people were also killed in another highway smashup in the western frontier district of Brahmanbaria. This, involving two coaches carrying vacationers, left six critically injured. The dead included two women and three children, highway police said. Over 5,000 accidents occur every year in Bangladesh's highways, official figures say. Most are ascribed to reckless driving and unfit vehicles.
