Five die in crash as Zimbabwe runs out of blood

Five people were killed and 95 injured when a freight train crashed into an overcrowded bus in Zimbabwe – a disaster which also exposed deficiencies in the country’s emergency blood supplies.

Treatment of people hurt in Saturday’s accident in Harare, the capital, was impaired by a lack of emergency blood for transfusions, newspapers reported.

Fifteen people were seriously injured, but the state-run Blood Transfusion Service told doctors that emergency supplies had run out. No explanation was given for the shortage.

The accident happened when the 75-seater bus, overcrowded with 115 passengers, failed to stop at a rail crossing in a western suburb of Harare.

Overcrowding on buses has worsened during acute fuel shortages in recent weeks.

Zimbabwe already has acute shortages of food, hard currency and fuel.

Basic drugs and other essential imports are also in short supply as the country led by Robert Mugabe suffers its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980.

Some 6.7 million people – at least half the population face possible starvation.

The crisis in a nation once known as the breadbasket of southern Africa is blamed on drought and a collapse of agriculture after the government’s confiscation of white-owned farms as part of its land-reform program.