Kabul: As many as 19 people were killed and 32 injured when a fuel tanker exploded in a tunnel in the Afghan province of Parwan, a local official said Sunday.
A spokesman for Parwan province, Himatullah Shamim, said Saturday night’s tunnel explosion killed at least 19 people, including women and children. He said survivors remain trapped under rubble and that the number of casualties could rise, as reported by AP.
It was not immediately clear what caused the incident, which happened at around 8.30 pm.
The truck was going from the province of Baghlan to Kabul and caught fire inside the tunnel.
Parwan’s health department has received 14 dead and 24 injured so far, according to local official Dr. Abdullah Afghan.
There are five women and two children among the dead, he said, and the rest are men who are severely burnt and cannot be recognized, as reported by AP.
According to the state-run Bakhtar News Agency, the road has already been cleared and is now open to traffic.
The Salang Tunnel, which is around 80 miles north of Kabul, was originally built in the 1960s to assist the Soviet invasion. The only road connecting Kabul with the northern provinces of Afghanistan passes through the tunnel.