800 Cameroon acts after bus crash

The Cameroon Government has suspended the licences of two bus companies whose vehicles were involved in a head-on crash at the weekend.

Seventy people were killed and at least 20 injured in the accident.

Transport Minister John Begheni Ndeh said drastic measures would now be taken against any driver or tour agency breaking traffic regulations.

An official inquiry has opened into the crash which happened near Edea, between the capital, Yaounde, and Cameroon's main port, Douala.

Dual carriageway

"Kami Express and Felicite Express Voyages are suspended with immediate effect," Mr Ndeh said in a statement.

"There is no doubt in my mind that the accident was due to reckless driving," he said when he visited the scene of the crash on Monday.

The road between Douala and Yaounde is notoriously unsafe

When the accident was reported, Prime Minister Peter Mafany Musonge promised "definitive measures to prevent a similar disaster" in future.

The government has already announced that a dual carriageway is to be built between Yaounde and Douala to cope with the traffic, which has increased thirty fold since the road was built 20 years ago, the French agency AFP says.

The road is the busiest in the country, the agency says, due to the large number of people travelling between the country's two largest cities, but also to the amount of goods exported to Chad and the Central African Republic, which are landlocked.