Twenty-six citizens of Belarus were injured in a traffic accident in Zhytomyr region Oct 24, and 10 of them have been hospitalized in the Novohrad-Volynskyi central district hospital, according to the press service of the Emergency Situations and Protection of Population from Chornobyl Disaster Consequences Ministry.

According to the press service, the traffic accident with a Mercedes bus carrying 45 citizens of Belarus to Mogiliov (Belarus) from the Ukrainian city of Khmelnytskyi occurred in the afternoon of Saturday on the Shepetivka-Novohrad-Volynskyi highway near the village of Orepa in Novohrad-Volynskyi district.

Officers of the Emergency Situations Ministry at 14:25 on October 24 received information that the bus, which is owned by the Belarusian Slav-Tour private firm, had overturned on the highway.

According to the preliminary findings of the investigation, the reason for the traffic accident was the malfunction of the steering system of the bus.

A team of the Zhytomyr regional office of the Emergency Situations Ministry worked at the place of the traffic accident.

According to the press service, 138 traffic accidents were registered in Ukraine over the past 24 hours. The traffic accidents took lives of 14 people, and 175 people got injuries.

As Ukrainian News earlier reported, six people have died and three have been hospitalized after a traffic accident in Perevalskyi district of Luhansk region on October 22.