Nine passengers were killed and another 25 wounded when a bus skidded off a road in northern Afghanistan and then caught fire, police said. The bus was also carrying a cargo of matches and was believed to have been travelling at high speed, police spokesman for Balkh province Sherjan Durani told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. The incident occurred in the Tangi area of northern Samagan province as the passenger bus was on its way from Kabul to the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, the provincial capital of Balkh. Bad roads and poor implementation of traffic regulations often cause accidents in this mountainous country, where only about 50 per cent of the roads are paved and even those are in poor condition.
