Dozens are killed in blaze aboard train in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD — At least 72 people were killed in central Pakistan on Thursday morning after a cooking stove being used on a train exploded, officials said. Witnesses said that some desperate passengers began jumping off the burning train while it was still moving.
The train, known as the Tezgam Express, was on its run from the southern city of Karachi to the city of Rawalpindi when three cars caught fire around 6:30 a.m. near a railway station at Liaquat Pur, a city in the southern province of Punjab.
Officials said some passengers had been preparing breakfast aboard the train, which is against regulations, when the gas cylinder fueling the stove exploded. The resulting fire quickly engulfed three cars full of passengers — two economy-class cars and one business-class car. At least 40 people were reported to have been injured.
Uzma Bibi was on the train with 17 family members on their way to a wedding in the city of Lahore. They heard an explosion, she said, and looked out the windows to see flames starting to billow out from nearby cars.
“There was panic and everyone started shouting,” she said. “Seven people in our car jumped off to save their lives.”
Batool Fatima, a 25year-old student, said one thing making the panic worse was that the train’s emergency brake did not seem to work. “They tried to stop the train by pulling the emergency rope, but the train didn’t stop immediately.”
Muhammad Tariq, who was injured along with his family members when they jumped from the train, said: “People started frantically screaming and shouting. They were begging for the train to stop. Train speed further fanned the fire.”
He added: “Had the train stopped immediately, the death toll would have been less.”
Officials said 11 people who had been severely burned were flown to a hospital in a nearby city, Multan, on a military helicopter.
Many passengers in the economy cars belonged to Tablighi Jamaat, an Islamic evangelical group, and were traveling to attend an annual congregation of the fraternity near Lahore, the provincial capital of Punjab.
Pakistan’s railway minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, told reporters in Multan that members of the group had used gas stoves on the train, despite having been told not to by a guard.