Disasters & Accidents

At least 29 killed, 35 injured in bus accident in Pakistan

Islamabad, Jul 19 (EFE).- At least 29 people died and another 35 were injured on Monday in a bus accident in eastern Pakistan, local authorities reported.

The bus collided with a truck on the Indus highway near the city of Dera Ghazi Khan in the early hours of Monday, local police spokesperson, Mubashir Malik, told EFE.

“Apparently the accident was because of over speeding but investigation is ongoing,” he said.

Most of those killed were workers who were travelling from Sialkot to their native city of Rajapur to celebrate the Feast of Sacrifice or Eid al-Adha this week.

The injured have been taken to a hospital in Dera Ghazi Khan.

Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry urged drivers to be more cautious.

“The drivers of public transport are protectors of other lives and need to take more care,” Chaudhry wrote on Twitter.

Pakistan has one of the highest traffic accident rates in the world owing to poor infrastructure and ill-maintained and overcrowded vehicles.

In June, at least 18 people were killed and 41 injured after a speeding bus overturned in southeastern Pakistan.

In 2017, at least 180 people were killed when a tanker, carrying gasoline, overturned in eastern Pakistan, making it one of the worst traffic accidents in the country.

Transport accidents also frequently involve trains in the country, given that its railway network dates back to the time when it was a colony of the British Empire, and from which it gained independence in 1947.

Around 62 people died in June after two trains collided in the province of Sindh in southern Pakistan. EFE

aa-jlr/pd/mp

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