Ten people were killed and at least 19 injured when a passenger bus and a minibus collided head-on near the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka yesterday, police said.

Nine of the minibus passengers died at the scene, in the Shibpur area, 50km northeast of Dhaka, police officer Khandaker Mohid Uddin said. Another person died later in hospital.

Police suspected reckless driving on the Dhaka-Sylhet highway as the cause.

Highway deaths are frequent in Bangladesh due to lax monitoring of highway codes, bad driving and poor road conditions. By official estimates, 5,000 people are killed in road crashes annually.