Twenty people, including children, were killed yesterday in the southern Philippines when the flatbed truck they were riding in plummeted into a ravine.
According to the police the vehicle was bringing a group of people home from a trip from the beach when the driver lost control near the town of T’boli in a deadly crash on one of the nation’s dangerous roads.
T’Boli town is in the south Cotabato province, in the southern island of Mindanao.
Eyewitness accounts suggest the truck lost its brakes and the T’boli town police are said to be conducting further investigations on the cause of the accident.
Police initially put the death toll at 15, but doctors said five of the 19 people taken to hospital for treatment later died. The dead included children aged between one to six years old, with the driver among those injured.
The group were returning from a swimming party at a beach in a neighbouring town and were on their way home when the accident occurred.
Deadly road accidents are common in the Philippines, where inadequately maintained buses and poorly trained drivers are commuters on the highways and snakey paths around the hills and coast.
This is not an isolated incident on one of the worlds most dangerous road networks. Earlier this year, in June, 13 people including a bride-to-be were killed when the truck they were riding on after attending a traditional pre-wedding ceremony rolled over on a mountain road.
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