ISLAMABAD – The Pakistani authorities raised the death toll to 30 this Sunday in the derailment of a dozen train carriages in southern Pakistan.which has also caused 80 injuries so far, while rescue teams work to remove more passengers who may have been trapped.
“More bodies have been removed, so the dead have risen to 30 and there are 80 injured for now. The rescue operation is still underway and a wagon is being cut to remove possible injured. There may be more injured or dead inside, but we are not sure,” Police officer Ashraf Zardari, who is at the scene of the accident, told EFE.
The accident occurred near Nawabshah district in Sindh province as the train was heading from the southern city of Karachi to the town of Sargodha.in the eastern province of Punjab, the spokesman in Sindh for the state railway company, Pakistan Railways, Muhammed Anjum, told EFE.
Television images immediately after the accident showed a large number of passengers near the derailed carriagessome of them lying on the ground.
Rescue teams are currently in the area of the accident, where they are working to raise the cars that derailed after the link between the locomotive and the rest of the train separated, Zardari reported.
However, the high temperatures in the region, as well as the need to use cranes to lift the wagons and special tools to cut metal to rescue passengers, are delaying operationshe added.
Numerous medical personnel also traveled to the place to treat the injured, who are being transferred to hospitals in nearby towns.
Train accidents are frequent in Pakistan, which has an old railway network dating from the times of the British Empire, from which they became independent in 1947.
Added to its antiquated infrastructure is the threat of attacks by insurgent groups, such as the one that took place last February, when a separatist group operating in the east of the country carried out an attack with explosives against a moving train that left at least one woman dead and seven other people injured.
In 2021, a collision between two trains in the south of Pakistan resulted in 62 deaths, in addition to thirty injuries. In October 2019, a total of 73 people died from the explosion of a gas cylinder that passengers used to prepare breakfast on a train in the south of the country.
Keep reading:
– Bus accident in Pakistan leaves at least 40 dead
– Tragedy in Senegal: Bus accident leaves 40 dead and dozens injured
– Nigeria: armed attack in villages in the center-west of the country leaves at least 30 dead
