Rabat – Two people have been severely wounded and 35 more injured after an intercity bus overturned in the province of Settat, 166 km from Casablanca.
The accident occured on Sunday April 3, around 2:15 p.m., on the national road linking the city of Khouribga in the Beni Mellal-Khenifra region to El Jadida city via Settat, according to authorities.
Royal Gendarmerie and four civil protection ambulances attended the scene of the accident to evacuate the wounded passengers to Settat’s provincial hospital.
An investigation is being carried out by authorities to determine the cause of the accident.
Morocco has seen a significant increase in traffic accidents since authorities began to lift measures to stem the spread of the coronavirus last year.
Traffic accidents cause on average nearly 3,500 deaths and 12,000 serious injuries annually, according to Morocco’s National Agency for Road Safety (NARSA).On average, 10 people are killed and 33 seriously injured in road accidents every day in Morocco, according to NARSA.
In September 2021, Morocco recorded 10,028 road traffic injuries across the country, an increase of 18.6% compared to September 2020.
Morocco experienced an increase in traffic accidents in 2021 compared to 2020, when accident numbers lowered considerably due to COVID-19 preventive measures, as circulation was limited because of the pandemic.
NARSA’s figures also show 1,193 deaths in the first five months of 2021, a 36.7% increase compared to the same period a year earlier.
However, the percentage of people who died in road accidents remained relatively low. The number of accident-related fatalities decreased by 8.1% in 2020, compared to 2019.
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