Two bus accidents involving a fuel tanker and a truck on a highway through central Afghanistan killed at least 52 people and injured 68, a provincial official said Thursday.

The accidents happened in Ghazni province on the same highway between the capital Kabul and southern Kandahar city late Wednesday, provincial head of information and culture Hamidullah Nisar said on X, without specifying how many people were killed and injured in each accident.

“There is a possibility the numbers could rise,” Nisar told reporters outside a hospital in Ghazni city where victims had been sent.

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He noted that some of the injured were in a “critical condition” and had been sent to Kabul for treatment. “Among the injured and dead were children, women and elderly people,” he added.

One bus collided with a fuel tanker near Shahbaz village in central Ghazni while the other hit a truck in the eastern district of Andar, Nisar said.