QUETTA: At least 15 people, including three security personnel, died and 29 others injured in a horrific collision between a passenger wagon and a bus on Quetta-Sibi National Highway on Saturday.
The wagon was crushed completely and six people, including the wagon’s driver, died on the spot.
According to police, the wagon was carrying more passengers than its capacity – some of whom even perched on the rooftop – and was being driven speedily as well. The driver lost control of the wagon – which was on its way to Quetta from Sibi – and collided with an oncoming bus near Dashat in Mastung district.
“The wagon literally looked like twisted scrap and we had to cut through the wreckage to extract bodies and the injured,” police officials said, adding that the collision killed six passengers on the spot while 29 passengers in both vehicles got injured.
“Three security officials – two Levies men and an army man – sitting in the passenger van were among the six who lost their lives,” said police officials.
Rescue workers, police and Frontier Constabulary personnel rushed to the accident site and shifted the bodies and the injured to the Quetta Civil Hospital where nine more succumbed to their injuries while some remain in life-threatening conditions.
The bus was hired by the staff of Balochistan University of Information Technology, Engineering and Management Sciences and they were headed to Bolan for a picnic.
Initial investigations describe speeding as the cause of the tragic accident.
The hospital was able to identify 14 of the 15 deceased as army and Levies personnel Eid Muhammad, Shabbir Ahmed and Saeed Ahmed, wagon driver Hayat Khan, Abdul Qadir, Shahnaz, Zulfiqar Ali, Jahangir, Allah Dina, Sallar, Muhammad Farooq, Aftab Ahmed, Atiqur Rehman and Gulraz.
The bodies were handed over to heirs after necessary medico-legal procedures.
Separately, at least five women died and 10 others injured after a tractor-trolley carrying 15 labourer women overturned in Natha Singh area of Arifwala tehsil in Pakpattan.
Police said that the driver of a tractor-trolley was moving the vehicle backward when it hit the protection wall of a well and overturned.
The bodies and the injured were shifted to a hospital where some injured were said to be in a life-threatening condition.
Published in Daily Times, October 8th 2017.
