Istanbul, Aug. 21, (dpa/GNA) - At least 35 people were killed and dozens more wounded in two major traffic accidents in southern Turkey on Saturday.
At least 16 people were killed and 22 injured in a collision involving several vehicles in the city of Gaziantep, local authorities said.
Three firefighters, four medical staff and two journalists were among the dead in the tragic accident, Gaziantep Governor Davut Gül told reporters at the crash site.
The rescue team was at the site to initially respond to an accident where a minibus crashed on the highway between Gaziantep city centre and Nizip district along the Syrian border, Gül said.
A bus then crashed at the site, killing the rescue members and two journalists, who were there to report on the initial car accident, Gül said.
The bus overturned and slid for 200 metres, hitting an ambulance and a outside broadcast truck, he added.
The two journalists were from news agency İHA, state news agency TRT said.
Hours later and about 300 kilometres to the east, another 19 people were killed and 29 injured, eight of of them severely, after a truck lost control and hit a crowd in the town of Mardin, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said.
“We are devastated by a second traffic accident,” Koca tweeted, saying the truck’s brake failed before it ploughed into the crowd in Mardin’s Derik district, along the border with Syria.
State broadcasters showed footage of the truck driving at high speed into a fleeing crowd of people.
GNA