Pakistan Bus Accident
Tragedy struck Pakistan on Sunday when two separate bus crashes claimed the lives of at least 36 people and left dozens more injured, local officials said.
The first accident occurred in the southwestern province of Baluchistan where a bus carrying Shia pilgrims returning from Iraq via Iran fell into a ravine. The accident happened on Makran Coastal Highway in Lasbela district where 12 people died and 32 were injured. Qazi Sabir, a local police chief told media the driver lost control as the brakes of the bus failed, which veered the bus off the highway.
Authorities in Baluchistan are arranging to send the dead bodies of the pilgrims back home in Punjab province. Punjab’s Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz condemned the attack and expressed sympathy for the families of the victims:.
Hours later, another terrible accident occurred in the Kahuta district of the eastern Punjab province. A bus with 24 passengers en route, out of which two women and a child were onboard, fell from the Panna bridge into a ravine. All the people inside the bus, with no exception, were killed. Omar Farooq, a senior government official in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, confirmed that nobody survived. Initial reports indicated that several people were injured. However, later doctors and officials confirmed that all of them died.
Rescue operations involved both locals and the emergency services at the Kahuta crash site. The villagers took the onus on themselves first to help retrieve bodies from the wreckage before any emergency crew arrived. Subsequently, Afterward, heavy machinery was used to lift the wreckage of the bus to ensure nobody was underneath.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif have issued separate statements to express their grief over tragic incidents. The government has been asked to provide the best medical care to the injured survivors of the Baluchistan crash.
These deadly crashes come just days after another bus accident in neighboring Iran killed 28 Pakistani pilgrims en route to Iraq. Their bodies arrived back in Pakistan on Saturday.
Road accidents in Pakistan are a frequent happening due to poor training of drivers, unsafe vehicles, and bad infrastructure. While continuous efforts are being made to improve road safety, all such tragedies point to the pressing need for stringent enforcement of traffic laws along with better roads.
Other similar Baluchistan crashes involve thousands of Shiite pilgrims who travel each year to Iraq’s holy city of Karbala to commemorate Arbaeen, an important Shia Muslim calendar event marking the death of Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Hussein.
The country is still in mourning as the situation remains dire with the tragedies claiming lives.
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