At least 35 killed in 2 Pakistan bus accidents, officials say
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Paramedics and rescue workers carry the bodies of bus accident victims at a hospial in Kahuta, Punjab province on Aug 25.
PHOTO: AFP
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RAWALPINDI, Pakistan - At least 35 people were killed in two separate bus accidents in Pakistan on Aug 25, including 12 pilgrims who had been trying to reach Iran, rescue and hospital officials said.
Twenty-three people were killed when the bus they were travelling in plunged into a ravine near the town of Azad Pattan on the border between Punjab province and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Dr Sameena Khan, the head of Tehsil Headquarter Hospital in the town of Kahuta, told AFP that 23 bodies had been recovered from the crash site.
Rescue coordinator Rawalpindi Muhammad Usman said the second bus had 25 passengers, and one was critically injured. All the bodies have been recovered from the ravine, he said.
“I have lost three members of my family,” Ms Tara Zafar, who travelled to the hospital after hearing about the accident, told AFP.
Her father, sister and one-year-old nephew were among the dead.
“I hoped that at least one of them had survived. It’s doomsday for my family.”
Mr Umar Farooq, a senior government official from Sudhanoti district, where the bus started its journey, confirmed the death toll in a phone call with AFP from the crash site.
In a separate incident, 12 men died when their bus crashed into a ravine on the Makran Coastal Highway in Balochistan, after being prevented from crossing into Iran.
“An army crane is on its way to help lift the bus from the ravine to check if passengers are pinned underneath the vehicle. Therefore the death toll may rise,” police official Aslam Bangulzai, who was at the scene, told AFP.
“This is a particularly treacherous tract of road, with many twists and turns. The driver was speeding and the bus fell into a deep ravine,” he added.
The accident occurred in a mountainous area, around 100km from the nearest town of Uthal and 500km from the Iran border town of Pishin.
“The bus was carrying pilgrims on its way to Arbaeen (pilgrimage) but was turned back at the Iran border because their documents had some problems,” said Mr Hamood Ur Rehman, a senior government official in the nearby district of Gwadar.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi in a statement expressed “heartfelt condolences and sympathy to the families of the deceased in both accidents”.
Road accidents with high fatalities are common in Pakistan, where safety measures are lax, driver training is poor and transport infrastructure, often decrepit.
On Aug 24, the bodies of 28 pilgrims who died in a bus crash in Iran were returned to Pakistan.
The bus was carrying 51 Pakistani pilgrims to Iraq for the Arbaeen commemoration, one of the biggest events of the Shiite calendar, when it overturned and caught fire in front of a checkpoint in Yazd province
Head of Iran’s traffic police Teymour Hosseini cited a brake failure and the steep road as the reasons for the crash. AFP, REUTERS
