DHAKA (AFP) - Police have recovered eight bodies following a head-on collision between two buses in eastern Bangladesh Monday and say up to a dozen more have been killed.

The accident happened after the driver of one bus, bound for the capital Dhaka, lost control and crashed into another bus travelling in the opposite direction, local police chief Abdur Rab told AFP.

"We have recovered eight dead bodies from one bus so far, which fell into a 20-feet-deep (six-metre) roadside ditch. There are still some dead bodies -- not more than a dozen -- inside the bus," he said.

Around 40 people were injured, including 12 who have been rushed to hospital in a critical condition, he added.

Bangladesh's highways are notorious for fatal accidents, which kill nearly 5,000 people a year, according to a study by the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology's Accident Research Centre.

LIKE IT?  LET OTHERS KNOW