At least 76 people were killed when a bus carrying Afghan migrants returning from Iran collided with two other vehicles in western Afghanistan, a provincial official said on Wednesday.
Mohammad Saeedi, spokesman for the Herat provincial government, said three others were injured in the incident after a fire erupted.
The dead were transferred to a military hospital, with more than a dozen children among those killed, the army said.
Many of the bodies were “unidentifiable”, said Mohammad Moqadas, chief physician of Al Farooq Army Corps Hospital.
Police in Guzara district, outside Herat city, where the accident occurred on Tuesday night, said the bus collided with a motorcycle and a lorry carrying fuel, sparking a fire.
The bus was carrying Afghans recently returned from Iran to the capital Kabul, Mr Saeedi said.
At least 1.5 million people have returned to Afghanistan this year from Iran and Pakistan, both of which have sought to force migrants out after decades of hosting them, according to the UN migration agency.
Many of those returning spent years outside the country and arrive without a place to go and carrying few belongings, facing steep challenges to resettle in a country facing endemic poverty and high unemployment.
The state-run Bakhtar News Agency said Tuesday's accident was one of the deadliest in the country in recent years.
Traffic accidents are common in Afghanistan, due in part to poor roads after decades of conflict, dangerous driving on motorways and a lack of regulation.
In December last year, two bus accidents involving a fuel tanker and a lorry on a motorway through central Afghanistan killed at least 52.
In March last year, more than 20 people were killed and 38 injured when a bus collided with a fuel tanker and burst into flames in southern Helmand province.
Another serious accident involving a fuel tanker took place in December 2022, when the vehicle overturned and caught fire on Afghanistan's high-altitude Salang Pass, killing 31 people.
