At least 20 people were killed Tuesday and six more were injured when a fuel tanker caught fire after colliding with a passenger bus in eastern Pakistan.
The crash occurred early Tuesday on a highway near the city of Multan in the eastern province of Punjab when a bus collided with a tanker, local police spokesman Abid Hussain told EFE.
“It looks like the driver fell asleep after hitting the tanker from behind,” said Hussain, who was at the Multan police checkpoint.
The head of the administration of Multan, Amir Khattak, drove to the scene of the accident and reported on the social network Twitter that a bus en route from the city of Lahore (north) to Karachi (south) crashed into the tanker from behind and crashed. “lit a fire”.
Qazi Ayub, who was in charge of emergency care at the Nishtar hospital in Multan, where the victims were taken, explained to Efe that twenty of the dead had suffered severe burns and were unrecognizable.
Therefore, “a DNA test will be carried out to identify the bodies.”
In addition, among the six victims, according to Ayub, four received severe burns of more than 20% of the body, another victim received burns of 70% of the body.
Punjab Prime Minister Parvez Elahi ordered an investigation into the crash, while Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif mourned the tragedy and offered his condolences to the families of the victims.
Pakistan has one of the highest rates of traffic accidents in the world due to poor road conditions, lack of vehicles and the fact that public transport is overloaded with passengers.
According to the government of Pakistan, about 30,000 people die every year as a result of traffic accidents in the country.
This Tuesday alone, another crash killed eight people and injured 20 more after a bus carrying passengers fell into a gorge in the southern province of Sindh, local television Aaj reported.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
