At least 43 people were killed and dozens injured in a derailment followed by a collision with another passenger train on Monday morning in southern Pakistan.
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Rescue workers took hours to free some of the passengers trapped in the tangle of twisted and shredded metal formed by wrecked trains near the town of Daharki in remote northern Sindh province, a door told AFP. - speech of Pakistan Railways. Operations continued into the night.
The double accident happened around 3:30 a.m. (10:30 p.m. GMT), at a time when most of the 1,200 passengers on the two trains were likely to sleep. The first train derailed before being struck by another oncoming train, according to the spokesperson. "
We fell on top of each other but nothing serious,
" Akhtar Rajput, passenger of the derailed Millat Express, told AFP. “
Then another train that appeared out of nowhere hit us and it shook us much more strongly. When I came to my senses, I saw passengers lying around me, others trying to get out of the wagon
”.
The Millat Express was connecting the large port of Karachi with the town of Sardogha when it derailed, sliding on the tracks of the Sir Syed Express coming in from Rawalpindi in the opposite direction. According to the Minister of Information, Fawad Chaudry, the two accidents occurred within minutes of each other. “
I was confused, trying to figure out what was happening to us when the other train hit us
,” said Shahid, another passenger. Daharki police official Umar Tufail said at least 43 people were killed and dozens more injured. He said he feared that the death toll would increase. Most of the dead were pulled from the first derailed train, according to local officials.The Pakistan Railways spokesperson spoke of at least 33 dead.
Images broadcast by local television showed doctors placing an IV on a man, conscious, whose only torso emerged from the metal clusters.
The corpses were lined up on train benches and covered with traditional shawls.
"
The site is out of the way and we are having difficulty in organizing rescue
", in particular to transport the appropriate equipment in order to clear at least six wagons destroyed in the accident, explained for his part the spokesperson for Pakistan Railways.
The army as reinforcements
The chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority, General Akhtar Nawaz Satti, announced on the private ARY television channel that the army and paramilitary forces stationed at bases nearby had come to the aid of the casualties.
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Villagers also came in crowds to try to help the wounded, according to local media images.
The accident occurred in a remote area of the province on a section of railroad tracks crossing farmland.
Gul Mohammad, a paramedic dispatched by a private foundation, reached by phone by AFP, explained that poor communications in the area made it difficult to coordinate relief efforts.
According to Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid, former Minister of Railways, the tracks on which the accident occurred, which he described as a “
mess
”, dated back to 1880. The current Minister of Railways in iron, Azam Swati, said the section of railway where the accident took place was "
really dangerous,
" but added that authorities were waiting for funds from the massive "
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor
" infrastructure project
to launch. the repairs. “
If there is any delay (to receive the funds), we will rebuild this railway with our own money,
” he said. A police official assured that he had already alerted the authorities to the "
danger
Of these tracks. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said he was "
in shock
" and promised a full investigation "
into railway safety breaches
" on his official Twitter account.
Rail accidents are common in Pakistan, which inherited thousands of miles of track and trains from colonial times, under the British Empire. But their maintenance has been neglected over the decades. In 1990, in Sindh province, a train collision killed more than 300 people and injured 700 others near the town of Sukkur when a crowded convoy of 16 cars crashed into a freight train. More recently, in October 2019, at least 75 people were killed in a fire on their train going from Karachi to Rawalpindi.