At least 16 people have been killed and 29 injured after a truck accidentally rammed into a crowd in a city in southeastern Turkey, the Turkish Minister of Health announced on Saturday.
"Sixteen people lost their lives and 29 others were injured, eight of them seriously. The accident occurred after the brakes of a truck malfunctioned, causing it to crash into a crowd in Derik”, said Minister Fahrettin Koca wrote on Twitter.
BREAKING: Multiple people dead after deadly semi-trailer truck accident in Mardin, Turkey pic.twitter.com/b31AdXBBH5
— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) August 20, 2022
Videos broadcast by Turkish press show a driver losing control of his truck, hitting several vehicles at full speed and pedestrians trying to flee. According to Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency, an accident involving three vehicles had occurred at the same location shortly before, and rescue teams were on the scene when the truck drove into the crowd.
Separately, an accident earlier in the day involving an ambulance and a coach left 16 dead and 21 injured on a highway linking the city of Gaziantep to that of Nizip. Turkish news agency DHA reported that an ambulance, a fire truck and a vehicle belonging to a team of journalists were hit head-on by a bus traveling on the same highway.
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Four rescuers, three firefighters and two journalists from the Turkish news agency Ilhas are among the 16 dead, according to local media. Images released by the DHA agency showed the rear of an ambulance partially shredded as well as the coach involved in the accident, lying on one side and with the front ripped open.
