Separate crashes leave 32 dead in Turkey

Separate vehicle crashes at sites where first respondents were attending to earlier accidents left at least 32 people dead in Turkey on Saturday.

The first incident occurred when a bus ran into an accident site on a highway near the city of Gaziantep where emergency workers and journalists were attending to an earlier accident.

Sixteen people were killed and another 20 were wounded in the accident.

Regional governor Davut Gul said the dead included three firefighters, four emergency health workers and two drone operators from a Turkish news agency.

“At around 10:45 this morning, a passenger bus crashed here,” Gul said, speaking from the scene of the accident on the road east of Gaziantep.

“While the fire brigade, medical teams and other colleagues were responding to the accident, another bus crashed 200 metres behind.

“The second bus slid to this site and hit the first responders and the wounded people on the ground.” Gul added.

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Vice President Fuat Oktay said the emergency workers and journalists had “lost their lives in the line of duty”.

Separately, a truck hit a site some 250 km (155 miles) east in Derik district of Mardin where first respondents were attending to another accident, according to footage.

Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said Sixteen people died and 29 others were injured as a result of the incident adding that eight of the wounded were in critical condition.

Zainab Sa’id