Kabul, Dec 30 : Seven commuters were killed and two others sustained injuries due to a road accident that occurred in northern Afghanistan's Badakhshan province on Tuesday, provincial police spokesman Ehsanullah Kamgar said.

The deadly collision took place in the Maimay district of the mountainous Darwaz region early morning, the official said without providing more details, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Last week, at least five people were killed and 44 others injured after a bus overturned in the Salang area of Afghanistan's Baghlan province.

In a statement shared on X, Afghanistan's Ministry of Public Works (MoPW) spokesperson Mohammad Ashraf Haqshenas said on Sunday that the incident happened in the Shawal area, north of Salang, at around 2 am on Saturday (local time), local media outlet Pajhwok Afghan News reported.

Haqshenas said that a passenger bus veered off the road and overturned due to reckless driving, claiming the lives of five people and injuring 44 others. He added that the injured were taken to the Khanjan district health centre for treatment.

The ministry asked people travelling on the route to follow the instructions given by officials and observe traffic rules. Authorities said that personnel were carrying out snow-clearing operations at several points on the Salang highway.

On December 15, local police said at least three people were killed and 16 others injured in two separate traffic accidents in Afghanistan in the past 24 hours.

A head-on collision between two vehicles on the Kabul-Kandahar highway in eastern Ghazni province claimed the lives of two people and injured two women. In the northern Jawzjan province, separate traffic incidents caused the death of one person and injured 14 others.

Authorities have attributed the accidents mainly to reckless driving, highlighting the dangers caused by overcrowded and poorly maintained roads in Afghanistan.

/IANS