Around 100 people in Chad are feared dead after a heavily laden truck carrying passengers, rice and sheep crashed off a bridge and plunged 33 feet into the Chari River.
Dozens of fishermen and ill-equipped firemen struggled to locate the bodies of victims in the muddy waters of the wide river.
Police say they have been forced to use truncheons to keep distraught relatives and onlookers at bay after the crash in the capital N'Djamena.
Dr Annour Mahamat, head of emergency services at N'Djamena General Hospital, says 10 bodies have been recovered after the accident, and nine people are being treated for injuries.
N'Djamena does not have the kind of equipment necessary to raise a heavy vehicle. The Arab Contractors, an Egyptian construction company that is building a hotel in the capital, has sent a crane to attempt to lift the truck and trailer.
The accident occurred as the truck and trailer loaded with sacks of grain and rice, sheep and an estimated 100 passengers headed across the bridge towards the town of Benoye, 217 miles to the south.
The cause of the accident is not known, but Police Commissioner Ramadan Herdoubou says it seems the driver had attempted to avoid pedestrians coming towards the truck on the single lane bridge that has no lights.
Trucks pulling trailers are the main form of long-distance transport for both people and goods in Chad and many other parts of Africa. During the hot, dry season, drivers and passengers prefer to travel at night when it is cooler.
A survivor, who identified himself only as Laldjim, said he didn't know the exact number of people who had been riding with him atop the sacks, "but there were at least 100."
The bridge, more than 40 years old and poorly maintained, is the main link between N'Djamena and southern Chad, where most of the country's 7 million people live.
On April 1st, at least 35 people died in Kenya in East Africa when a speeding bus rammed another on a bridge and both plunged into the rain-swollen Sabaki River. Authorities believe that a number of bodies were carried into the nearby Indian Ocean.
PA