TANGAIL, Bangladesh – A speeding bus lost control and plunged off the road in central Bangladesh on Saturday, killing at least 18 people and injuring dozens, a police official said.
Rescuers recovered 16 bodies from the ruins of the bus after the accident in Tangail district, 50 miles north of the capital, Dhaka, local police chief Abdul Mannan said. Another two people died from injuries at the hospital, he said.
Mannan said another 46 people were being treated in hospitals for injuries, five of them in serious condition.
The bus was packed with day laborers traveling from the northern district of Kurigram to Dhaka in search of jobs.
Bus accidents — blamed on unskilled driving, faulty vehicles and lax rules — are common in Bangladesh, claiming more than 5,000 lives a year.
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