A cargo truck hit a minibus with 20 passengers inside on a highway near Kamianske village of Zaporizhzhya Oblast, some 600 kilometers southeast of Kyiv on Aug. 10.
Five children and one adult were killed and 12 more people injured in what makes third massive car crash with dozens of victims in two months.
In July, 15 people were killed and more than 20 injured in two deadly car accidents in Mykolaiv and Zhytomyr oblasts in one day Both car incidents featured minibusses.
It was a truck driver, who apparently caused the car crash on Aug. 10, Deputy Head of National Police of Ukraine Oleksandr Fasevych said in a message published on National Police website on Aug. 10.
The police have already opened a criminal investigation and took the driver to the police department for questioning. If found guilty, the driver faces up to 12 years in prison for violating the road safety rules that caused deaths, the police said.
State Emergency Service and police officers are still working on a car accident place, investigating all the details of a tragedy, Fasevych said.
According to Ukraine’s National Police, an average of eight Ukrainians die each day from traffic accidents.
After the July accidents, Ukraine’s Infrastructure Ministry issued a statement banning the use of mini-buses for passenger transportation. But the ban will come into force only in January 2019.
