Pakistan collision kills more than 50 including children

Authorities say at least 56 people were killed and 18 passengers injured in the accident between a bus and a lorry carrying coal.

KARACHI // At least 56 people, including 18 children, were killed on Tuesday when a bus collided with a lorry loaded with coal in southern Pakistan, officials said.

The accident happened near the city of Khairpur, 450 kilometres north of Karachi, the capital of southern Sindh province.

Pakistan has an appalling record of fatal traffic accidents due to poor roads, badly-maintained vehicles and reckless driving. Crashes killing dozens of people are not uncommon.

Television footage of the aftermath of the crash showed the mangled bus lying on its side, its roof completely sheared off and battered green seats scattered around the scene.

Senior local police official Nasir Aftab said that 56 people were killed and 18 passengers injured in the accident. There were 17 women and 18 children among the dead.

“The accident was so severe that all of them died at the spot and only one child died at hospital during treatment,” doctor Jaffer Soomro said by phone from Khairpur Civil Hospital.

“I have never seen a road accident of such a horrible magnitude.”

The bus was carrying Pashtun families from northwestern Swat valley to Karachi, and medical staff were struggling to communicate with some of the injured, who spoke only the Pashto language.

“We have called Pashtun translators to communicate with the surviving people especially the children who are in very miserable condition,” Mr Soomro said.

The details of Tuesday’s crash are still not entirely clear. Initial reports said the two vehicles collided head on, but later police said the bus hit the stationary lorry after pulling out from a fuel stop.

A D Khawaja, the Motorway Police chief of Sindh province, said the poor condition of the road may have been a factor, as well as bad driving.

“There was a deep ditch on the road which we call ‘rutting’ some 30 to 40 yards before the place where the bus hit the lorry,” he said.

“We have learned that the bus went out of control after it hit the rutting and it landed on the opposite side of the road and then hit the lorry which was coming from Karachi.”

A senior police officer in the area, Masood Bangas, said the bus was travelling at around 80km/hour when it hit the lorry.

* Agence France-Presse