Lahore: At least 13 members of the same family were killed and nine others were injured after a truck they were travelling in skidded off the road and plunged into a ravine in Punjab province’s Khushab district. Sources told Geo News that the accident occurred due to a brake failure on the road in Khushab after which the driver lost control of the vehicle.
According to Rescue 1122, the vehicle was coming from the Bannu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to the Khushab district of Punjab when the accident occurred. The accident occurred some 250 km from Lahore. “As many as 13 people, including five children, died on the spot. Nine injured have been shifted to a hospital where their condition is stated to be critical,” an official said.
The family was on its way towards Khushab and the deceased included some women. Rescue officials said the deceased and the injured belonged to an extended family who were coming to Khushab for labour work. Some eyewitnesses said the driver lost control of the vehicle due to overspeeding.
Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz expressed her grief over the loss of lives in the accident and directed the authorities to provide the injured with the best treatment facilities. In a similar incident in March, eight members of a family were killed when a vehicle plunged into a deep ravine in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Buner.
Road accidents in Pakistan
In a separate incident, at least 20 people were killed after a passenger bus skidded off a mountainous terrain and plunged into a ravine in the Gilgit-Baltistan area of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir earlier this month, according to authorities. The bus was reportedly on its way from Punjab’s province of Rawalpindi to Hunza when the driver lost control of the vehicle on the Karakoram Highway in Gilgit-Baltistan’s Diamer district.
Earlier last month, a truck carrying pilgrims fell into a deep ravine in Balochistan’s Hub district, killing 17 people and injuring more than 30 others, police said on Thursday. The pilgrims were going to pay homage at the remote Muslim Sufi shrine Shah Noorani in the Khuzdar district of Balochistan when the mishap occurred.
A police official said the accident occurred due to a sharp turn during the drive, Geo News reported. The driver of the truck, Karim Baksh — who was also injured in the incident — was taken into custody. “More than 70 people had left for the pilgrimage from Makli’s Qasim Jokhio village,” the official told reporters.
It should be mentioned here that road accidents are common in Pakistan and claim numerous lives on a daily basis. Poor roads, lack of safety awareness and blatant disregard for traffic rules often cause fatal accidents in Pakistan. In February, at least 10 people were killed and 15 injured when an overspeeding bus they were travelling fell into a ravine in northwest Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The driver lost control while negotiating a sharp turn due to overspeeding and fell into a deep gorge, police said.
In December of last year, a bus carrying pilgrims caught fire on its way from Shah Noorani shrine in Balochistan’s Khuzdar to Karachi killing at least one passenger and injuring several others. The accident took place after the vehicle’s engine heated up due to speeding and ignited flames.
(with PTI inputs)
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