Passengers jumped from the windows - some burning in flames - as the bus veered off the road and crashed into an electric poll in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, police said.
"I carried four passengers in my rickshaw. Their clothes, skin and parts of their heads were in flames," rickshaw driver Fara Ali told AFP at the site of the attack. "It was such a terrible scene."
Assistant police commissioner Shibly Noman said at least 17 passengers and the bus driver were admitted to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital with different degrees of burn injuries.