ACCRA, May 11 (Reuters) - At least 41 people were killed in southern Ghana after a truck laden with cocoa collided with a bus and other vehicles piled into the wreckage, police in the West African country said on Friday.

Motorists had stopped to help after the initial collision late on Thursday when a second truck, also full of cocoa, and several cars smashed into the vehicles, according to Emmanuel Tei Okosu, police spokesman for Ghana's central region.

"The dead include Beninois, Togolese, Nigerians and Liberians," he said, adding the bus had been travelling from Ivory Coast across Ghana to Togo.

Traffic accidents are frequent in West Africa, where roads are riddled with potholes, cars are poorly maintained, and trucks and buses are often overloaded with goods and passengers, but the toll from Thursday's crash was unusually high.

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