30 killed as two buses collide in Pakistan

At least 30 people were killed and more than 60 injured when two buses collided with each other on Khanpur Road near Sahja in Rahim Yar Khan in Pakistan on Monday morning.

‘The bodies of the dead and injured could only be recovered after cutting through the vehicles,’ police officials said. Rescue efforts are still underway.

District Coordination Officer Rahim Yar Khan Capt (R) Zafar Iqbal and DPO Zeeshan Asghar monitored the situation. ‘The death toll may rise,’ DCO Iqbal said.

Officials said the buses collided at about 6 am. ‘Death toll has climbed to 30,’ Hassan Iqbal, police inspector of Rahim Yar Khan, told Reuters.

The injured have been shifted to hospitals in Khanpur and Rahim Yar Khan hospitals. Further, some of the people injured in the incident are said to be in serious condition.

One of the buses was on its way from Karachi to Lahore while the other was heading to Sadiqabad from Faisalabad, Express News reported.

Expressing grief and sorrow over the loss of lives in the accident, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif directed concerned authorities to  provide the injured with best medical treatment, Radio Pakistan reported.

In another incident, at least six people, including a municipal committee chairman, died when a car they were travelling in rammed into a truck in the Dasht area of Mastung district Sunday night.

The car was en route to Kalat from Quetta when it bumped into a truck coming from the opposite direction, a local official told The Express Tribune.

The crash was so intense that all six on board the car were killed on the spot. The victims included the chairman of Kalat municipal committee, Mohammad Nawaz Shahwani.

The bodies were later driven to the Nawab Ghous Baksh Hospital in Mastung.