52 People Killed in Bus Fire in Kazakhstan

Following a bus fire in northwestern Kazakhstan, 52 people were killed. According to Aqtilek Kens, head of the local emergency management department in Kazakhstan, all passengers on the bus were from Uzbekistan and were traveling on the Aqtau road in the Mangystau region of Kazakhstan. This road is a common route for migrant workers heading to Russia. Kazakh officials stated that the bus caught fire at 10:30 AM local time, 10 kilometers from the village of Kalibai on the road leading to the city of Samara in Russia. Ruslan Imanqulov, a spokesperson for the emergency committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan, announced that two Kazakh drivers and three Uzbek citizens survived the incident. He noted that the bus had a Kazakh license plate. Officials indicated that the bus was en route to Russia from the city of Shymkent in southern Kazakhstan. Based on these statements, most of the passengers were migrant workers from Uzbekistan. Many Uzbek workers travel to Russia via Kazakhstan for work. The local emergency management department in Kazakhstan has cited a short circuit in the bus's electrical system as a possible cause of the fire. Investigations into the cause of the bus fire are ongoing. Aqtilek Kens mentioned that the Ikarus bus, manufactured in Hungary, was overloaded. The Uzbek Ministry of Foreign Affairs also issued a statement announcing the dispatch of officials to the accident site. In October 2017, a Kazakh bus with over 50 Uzbek passengers collided with a train in Russia after stopping on the tracks, resulting in 17 fatalities.