At least 21 lives were claimed in a traffic accident in the early hours of Tuesday, hours after another 16 lost their lives in an unrelated accident on Monday.

In Tuesday’s accident that left 21 dead, some 25 more were injured when a bus owned by a private transportation company hit a pickup truck in the eastern city of Suez, state-run television reported.

In the south of the country, another deadly accident occurred on Monday night when two vehicles collided, claiming a total of 16 lives, state-run MENA reported.

The accident, which occurred when a microbus and a pickup truck collided on a road connecting Assiut and Minya in Upper Egypt, also left two people injured. One of the vehicles was reportedly moving in the opposite direction because the other side of the road was damaged.

Also in Upper Egypt, a deadly car crash in January left 19 people dead after a head-on collision occurred between a minibus and a pickup truck. To mourn the dead, the national day celebrations of the Upper Egypt governorate of Aswan were cancelled.

Over the past few days, 17 people have also lost their lives in two car crashes under inclement weather conditions.

The source of nearly 42 traffic deaths per 100,000 people annually, Egypt’s roads are the third most dangerous in the world, according to the World Health Organisation. On average, 12,000 people are killed on Egypt’s roads every year.