# Sidama health bureau says 66 killed in bridge crash in southern Ethiopia
The regional health bureau said a vehicle accident at Gelana bridge in Bona Zuria Woreda killed 66 people and left four injured in hospital on December 29.
By NeoTechNews Desk
Event date: 2024-12-29
A road accident at Gelana bridge in Bona Zuria Woreda, in southern Ethiopia’s Sidama region, killed 66 people and left four others injured, according to the regional health bureau quoted by The Guardian. The bureau said the victims were taken to Bona general hospital and that the count was still provisional, using the wording “so far” to describe the number of dead. The incident took place about 300 kilometres south of Addis Ababa, placing it in a part of the country far from the capital but still within Sidama state’s public-health network.
The bureau’s Facebook update was the main public source for the early tally. It said a car accident had claimed 66 lives and that four injured passengers were receiving treatment. That wording matters because it suggests the regional authorities were still in the process of accounting for victims when they released the statement. They did not give a full breakdown of the vehicle, the route it was taking or the exact sequence of events that led to the crash at the bridge. They also did not provide a cause.
Images shared by the bureau showed the scale of the scene rather than a clean explanation of what happened. One image appeared to show a large crowd gathered around a vehicle partly submerged in water, with people attempting to help pull it out. Other pictures appeared to show bodies covered in blue tarpaulin on the ground. Those images do not explain the accident, but they do make clear that the incident had already become a mass-casualty emergency by the time authorities posted their update.
The lack of detailed information is part of the story. At this stage, the source packet offers a verified death count, a location and a short note about treatment for the injured, but it does not explain whether the vehicle plunged from the bridge, skidded into the water or was carrying passengers in some other configuration. The bureau said more information would be made available when it received it, which means the early public record was still being built.
Even without a full reconstruction, the immediate implications were obvious. Four injured passengers were in hospital, families were facing a rapidly rising death toll and local health officials were trying to communicate a disaster before every detail was final. In a single post, the bureau shifted the incident from local uncertainty into an official public tragedy.
The report also sits within the normal reporting problem of large rural crashes: the first information often comes from the agencies closest to the scene, while the final picture emerges only after rescue teams, hospitals and local officials compare notes. That is why the phrase “claimed the lives of 66 people so far” should be read as an early count rather than a final judicial or investigative determination.
For now, the only safe summary is the one the bureau gave. A road accident at Gelana bridge in southern Ethiopia left 66 dead and four injured, and officials were still working to explain exactly how it happened.
