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The wreckage of carriages is seen after the deadly crash. (Reuters)
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GHOTKI,
Pakistan, July 13, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – At
least 150 people were killed and 1,000 injured in a triple passenger
train crash at a station in southern Pakistan on Wednesday, July 13.
"There
are about 150 dead so far," Chaudhry Nazir Ahmad, divisional
superintendent of Pakistan Railways, told Agence France Presse (AFP),
adding that rescue teams were still pulling bodies from the mangled
coaches.
Police
said an express train coming from the eastern city of Lahore rammed
into the rear of the Quetta Express stopped at Ghotki station for
repairs. A third train, coming the other way from Karachi, then
ploughed into some of the derailed carriages.
Rescuers
were trying to extract hundreds of people still trapped in the mangled
carriages of the three trains, which lay scattered amid piles of
debris and body parts.
"It's
a painful scene. There are bodies scattered all over. People are
crying, fathers are looking for children, husbands for their wives and
brothers for their sisters," a witness told AFP by telephone.
Railway
officials said the Karachi Express driver had misread a signal at
Sarhad station that turned green to allow the Quetta Express, which
had stopped for repairs, to move.
"The
driver of the Karachi Express thought the signal allowed him to pass
and he rammed into the rear part of the Quetta Express,"
according to Junaid Qureshi, a senior railway official.
The
driver was seriously injured and his assistant was killed, he added.
Huge
Bang
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Pakistani men search for survivors after the crash. (Reuters)
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Shocked
survivors described being thrown from their bed and seats.
"I
was sleeping. I woke up at the noise of a huge bang and then there was
big jerk and smoke all over the place," a distraught injured
passenger, Mohammad Amin, told Reuters.
"There
was total darkness ... I hit the floor and fainted," added
weeping Amin, who was desperately searching for his son.
Hundreds
of people were also trapped inside carriages' wreckage, while two
relief trains have also been rushed to the area to help with rescue
efforts, officials said.
"Our
teams have rescued scores of people from inside the ruptured coaches,
but hundreds more are trapped inside and we are trying to evacuate
them," Salahuddin Haider, spokesman for the government of Sindh
province, told AFP.
Rail
official Qureshi said 16 coaches were derailed -- 12 from the Tez Gam
train, three from the Quetta Express and one from the Karachi Express.
Military
spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan said the army was supervising
the rescue operation after the "tragic accident."
Civilian
services and relief agencies are also taking part.
The
accident halted all railway traffic in the area and it would take many
hours to restore the service, Qureshi said.
Dozens
of people have been killed in recent years on Pakistan's ageing
railway system.
In
1991 a deadly crash at Ghotki between a passenger train and a goods
train killed 50 people according to authorities and between 100 and
200 according to press reports.
A
year earlier, more than 350 people were killed and 700 injured when a
goods train collided with a passenger train in Sangi, north of
Karachi.
