Train disaster in Pakistan takes at least 110 lives
A passenger train derailed on Monday, March 3, in Pakistan's eastern
Punjab province, killing 110 people, according to emergency rescue
workers.
"The scene is horrific," said Mohammed Zubair, an ambulance
worker with the Edhi Trust, the only privately run emergency service
in the country.
Over 150 other people were injured when the brakes failed on the
express train near Khaniwal, about 400 km southeast of the capital,
said Zubair.
Another ambulance worker, Shamshed Iqbal, said there were still
several people trapped inside the overturned railway cars.
"We are having trouble reaching the people," he said.
Some railway cars rolled on top of others and Iqbal said rescue
workers were unable to reach people trapped inside the twisted
wreckage.
Zubair and Iqbal, both contacted in Khaniwal, said many of the
injured were in critical condition.
The 17-car train was en route from Peshawar in Pakistan's northwest
frontier province to southern Karachi on the Arabian Sea when
the accident occurred early morning.
The train was apparently ordered to stop to make way for a second
passenger train that was leaving Khaniwal, the authorities said.
When the operator of the train realized the brakes had failed
he drove the train onto a track for runaway trains. It jumped
the tracks and the first five cars overturned, they said.
Pakistan's train system is antiquated and there are frequent accidents.
People from Khaniwal arrived at the site of the accident and pulled
bodies from the overturned rail cars, said eyewitnesses.
They covered them in white shrouds, a common practice in Islamic
Pakistan.
Ambulances brought many of the more seriously wounded to Multan,
about 40 km away.
UNI
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