Upward of 25 people died overnight and scores more were injured in a series of large-scale road accidents across Russia, the Interfax news agency reported Wednesday.
Eleven people were killed and at least 35 were injured when a bus collided Wednesday morning with a truck in Krasnoyarsk's Kozulsky district, Interfax reported.
The bus belonged to a group of companies called Avtokolonna 1967, which also owned a vehicle that was involved in a crash that killed another 11 people in Krasnoyarsk earlier this month, the report said.
Krasnoyarsk region Governor Viktor Tolokonsky ordered that flags in the region should be flown at half-mast Thursday and urged local broadcasters and businesses to cancel entertainment programs and events as a sign of respect for the dead, his office said in an online statement.
Just hours before the crash in Krasnoyarsk, 10 people were killed in Chechnya after the private minibus they were traveling in plunged into a ravine in the republic's Vedensky district, Interfax reported.
Another eight people — including a 2-year-old child — were injured in the accident, the report said, citing an unidentified source in the regional branch of the Emergency Situations Ministry. Six victims, including the child, were said to be in serious condition.
Elsewhere in Russia, three road workers were killed and another four injured after being run over by a truck in the Novosibirsk region on Wednesday, Interfax cited the regional branch of the Interior Ministry as saying.
A separate accident involving a tourist bus in the Bashkortostan republic left 27 people in need of medical attention on Wednesday morning. The bus, which was carrying 40 passengers, overturned and dropped into a ditch, Interfax reported.
Two other accidents in the Moscow and Chelyabinsk regions claimed the lives of five people and left four injured, the report said.
Contact the author at j.monaghan@imedia.ru
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