A passenger bus pulling out of a side road onto one of Tanzania’s busiest freight routes has collided with a heavy lorry, killing at least 21 people in the southern region of Iringa. A senior doctor at Iringa’s main hospital later put the toll at 23.
Among the dead counted at the scene were two little boys, three to five years old, along with nine women and ten men. The crash happened at about 7am on Monday at Masumbo junction near Kiponzelo, on the TANZAM highway that links Tanzania with Zambia and carries a steady stream of trucks towards central Africa. The Maokoto Express bus had set out from the village of Wasa, heading for Iringa town; the Scania truck it hit was hauling freight to DR Congo.
Regional police commander Allan Bukumbi blamed the bus driver, saying he had pulled onto the highway from a minor road without checking for oncoming traffic. Early reports had also mentioned a possible brake failure. He did not survive the impact. Survivors were taken to the regional hospital, a designated hospital and a local dispensary.
Expressing sympathy to grieving families, President Samia Suluhu Hassan told the police force to crack down harder on traffic offences. Bukumbi promised more vehicle inspections but warned that a roadworthy vehicle offers little protection against careless driving, urging motorists to slow down near junctions.
Iringa’s loss comes only weeks after a pair of crashes on a single October night in Morogoro region killed 32 people, most of them when a bus caught fire after hitting a timber lorry. Government figures show road deaths falling, but the interior ministry still recorded more than 1,000 fatalities in the ten months to April 2026.
