8 killed, 35 wounded in road crash in Bangladesh

Eight people were killed and 35 others wounded on Saturday in a road crash in northwest Bangladesh, police said. Sheikh Delwar Hossain, police chief of Gobindaganj Sub-district of northwestern Gaibandha District, 268 km northwest of capital Dhaka, told Xinhua by telephone that the accident took place on Saturday afternoon as two passenger buses coming from opposite directions collided head-on, killing five people on the spot. Three more passengers died on the way to hospital, Hossain said, adding that the wounded were admitted to local hospitals. The cause of the accident is under investigation, he added. The South Asian nation has one of the highest fatality rates for road accidents in the world, mainly due to shoddy highways, poorly-maintained vehicles, violation of traffic rules by inept drivers and lack of monitoring of the traffic department