ANKARA, July 30 (AFP) - Twenty-six people were killed and 30 injured when a passenger bus collided with two trucks in eastern Turkey, a regional official said Friday.
Several people had to be freed by firefighters from the wreckage following the accident late Thursday near Tercan in the province of Erzincan, the town's governor Ilhami Aktas told the Anatolia news agency.
Rescue workers worked into the night among the twisted wreckage.
The cause of the collision -- in which the bus hit one truck head-on and the second truck crashed into them -- was not immediately clear, but one newspaper put it down to speeding.
Two of the three drivers involved in the crash were killed while the third was hospitalized, Aktas said.
Authorities were having difficulty identifying the victims as some did not have identification cards and others were badly mutilated, Anatolia said.
The passenger bus and one of the trucks were Turkish registered while the second truck carried Iranian license plates, the NTV news channel said.
President Ahmet Necdet Sezer issued a statement Friday urging greater care and regard for traffic rules to minimize accidents.
"Despite the warnings, inspections and efforts expended, traffic accidents unfortunately remain one of the priority problems in the country awaiting a solution," Sezer said.
"I especially request our citizens to respect other people's lives along with their own, to obey traffic rules and to be careful," he added.
Traffic accidents are common in Turkey where drivers generally have little regard for safety regulations and rules, despite several nationwide campaigns for awareness and hefty hikes in fines.
The state of most roads is poor, traffic signs often get stolen and bribery is a common method to escape penalty for violation of traffic rules.
According to police statistics, in 2003 nearly 2,900 people were killed and some 95,000 people injured in some 422,000 accidents.
Turkish statistics for road deaths however only take account of those killed at the scene and not those who later die in hospital.
The latest accident came at a time when Transport Minister Binali Yildirim is facing a censure motion after the death of 37 people when a newly-launched fast express train derailed last week in the northwest of the country.