THE death toll from a road mishap, which occurred on Monday night in Morogoro region, has reached nine after two more died yesterday while receiving treatment.
According to report, 23 injuries were still receiving treatment at the Morogoro Regional Referral Hospital.
When the accident occurred on Monday at around 10:30pm, seven people died on the spot.
The accident involved three vehicles including a passenger minibus which was plying between Dar es Salaam and Mbeya Region.
The Acting Medical Doctor in Charge at Morogoro Referral Hospital, Dr Kessy Ngalawa yesterday confirmed the incident, noting that on Monday midnight the hospital received 7 bodies and 25 injuries.
“Two out of the 25 injuries have died after arriving at the hospital, thus increasing the number of deaths to nine,” said Dr Ngalawa.
Dr Ngalawa said among the 23 people who are nursing wounds at the hospital, five have been admitted at the intensive care unit due to serious injuries.
He said out of the nine deaths, two were women, six men and a child aged between 4 and 5 years old,
Two bodies have been identified by relatives and others were still preserved at the hospital’s mortuary waiting for relatives to identify.
He, however, noted that out of 23 people being admitted, five were women, 17 men and a one-year old child.
One of victims of the accident, Mr Frank Ramson recounted how the incident occurred, pointing out that the passenger minibus, which was heading to Mbeya from Dar es Salaam, stopped when arrived at Mikese area, Morogoro, to allow passengers to relieve themselves.
“From there the driver drove the bus at a normal speed but later as we approached Kingolwira in Morogoro Municipality a police officer stopped us,” he said.
Adding: “The driver disembarked and went to speak to the officer. His aide took over the driver’s seat and started driving speedily leaving the other driver with the police officer in an attempt to escape with the car from the police,”
Despite plea from passengers that he should reduce the speed, he turned a deaf ear to the passengers.
The driver insisted that he should did that because if police would have arrested them they would be subjected to a fine of 600,000/-.
The driver of the speeding minibus then tried to pick up a telephone call from his fellow driver but due to the high speed, he lost control and the minibus collided head on with a lorry belonging to Dangote.
Morogoro Regional Police Commander, Fortunatus Muslim also confirmed the incident which involved a small passenger bus with registration number T 689 DUK travelling from Dar es Salaam to Mbeya colliding with a Cresta T563 ASA and later hitting a lorry registered as T658 DJZ property of Dangote.
Commander Muslim observed that the cause of the accident was due to the driver of the coaster’s recklessness to overtake the vehicles in front of him without taking necessary precautions. He noted that investigations into the matter were continuing.
Commenting about the crash, the Morogoro Regional Commissioner, Mr Albert Msando urged drivers to adhere to all traffic rules and regulations.
Mr Msando likewise called upon passengers to report any misconduct by drivers to the authorities in overcoming similar crashes from occurring, citing that the nation is losing strong arms to accidents while they can be prevented.