Bus-truck collision claims 33 passengers in Punjab town
LAHORE: At least 33 passengers, mostly laboureres, travelling home to celebrate Eid Al Adha with loved ones, were killed and over 40 others injured when their bus rammed into a truck on a highway in Punjab province on Monday.
The bus had let the city of Sialkot for Dera Ghazi Khan. A local police official said that the exact cause of the accident is still under investigation. Rescuers shited the dead bodies and injured to a nearby hospital.
An in charge of the rescue team at the site, told local media persons that the death toll would likely to rise as some of the injured were in critical condition. He said the bus driver was among the 33 killed in the mishap.
According to another official the laboureres were travelling in the bus to their home district of Rajanpur, Punjab province, to celebrate the upcoming Eid Al Adha feast.
TV footage and photos circulating on social media showed rescuers trying to pull out bodies from the badly mangled bus. In one image, some of the injured are seen siting near the bus, waiting for medical help.
Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry expressed his condolences on Twiter and advised public transport drivers to be more careful of the lives of the people they have been entrusted with.
“When will we as a nation realise that the violation of traffic rules is fatal,” he said.
KARAK ACCIDENT: In a separate development, seven passengers, including four women, were killed and eight others were injured in a road accident near the Krappa area of the Karak district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, police officials said.
They said a passenger van was on its way to Shakardarra from Rawalpindi when it collided with a truck near the Krappa area.
The accident, they said, was so severe that the truck turned turtle and overturned ater the collision.
Eyewitnesses said that the road accident occurred due to over-speeding. LIGHTING KILLS 3: In an unrelated development, three members of a family were killed and two others were injured following the lightning strike in Muzaffarabad on Monday.
As per details, the lightning struck a house located in village Abbar Bata, located in Neelam Valley in Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
Three members of a family including a mother, son and daughter were killed in the terrifying incident, while two others received burn injuries.