An overturned oil tanker yesterday burst into flames in Pakistan, killing 153 people who had rushed to the scene of the highway accident to gather leaking fuel, an official said.
Local officials said more than 100 were hurt.
The death toll could rise further as 50 people are still in critical condition, said Mohammad Baqar, a physician who is a senior rescue official in the area.
Photo: EPA
There were dozens of other injuries of varying degrees, he said.
Local news channels showed black smoke billowing skyward and scores of burned bodies, as well as rescue officials speeding the injured to hospital and army helicopters ferrying the wounded.
Saznoor Ahmad, 30, whose two cousins were killed in the fire, said the crowd of people screamed as the flames engulfed them.
“The fire moved so fast,” he said.
When the flames subsided the field was strewn with bodies, and nearby were the charred shells of motorcycles and cars that the villagers had used to race to the scene.
As the wounded cried out for help, residents wandered through the area looking for loved ones.
Zulkha Bibi was searching for her two sons.
“Someone should tell me about my beloved sons, where are they? Are they alive or are they no longer in this world? Please tell me,” she pleaded.
The disaster came on the eve of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan.
While Saudi Arabia and most other Muslim countries celebrated the holiday yesterday, Pakistanis will mark it today.
The tanker carrying 40,000 liters of fuel was driving from the southern port city of Karachi to Lahore, the Punjab provincial capital, when the driver lost control and crashed on the national highway outside Bahawalpur.
Details were sketchy, but some witnesses suggested the tanker had suffered a burst tire, regional police chief Raja Riffat said.
A loudspeaker atop a local mosque alerted villagers to the leaking fuel and scores raced to the site with jerry cans, Bahawalpur Deputy Commissioner Rana Mohammad Salim said.
Highway police moved quickly to redirect traffic, but could not stop the scores of villagers who raced to collect the fuel, spokesman Imran Shah told a local TV channel.
When the fire erupted, the same mosque loudspeaker called on the remaining villagers to help put it out.
Mohammed Salim ran toward the smoke carrying buckets of water and sand, but said the heat was too intense to reach those in need.
“I could hear people screaming but I couldn’t get to them,” he said.
Abdul Malik, a police officer who was also among the first to arrive, described a “horrible scene.”
“I have never seen anything like it in my life. Victims trapped in the fireball. They were screaming for help,” he said.
When the fire subsided, “we saw bodies everywhere, so many were just skeletons. The people who were alive were in really bad shape,” he said.
A state of emergency was declared at the Victoria Hospital in Bahawalpur, physician Javed Iqbal said.
Iqbal said most of the patients suffered burns to upward of 80 percent of their bodies.
After being stabilized they would be transferred by C-130 aircraft to hospitals in Lahore.
Some of the most badly burned were evacuated by army helicopters to Multan, about 100km away.
The dead included men, women and children.
Many were burned beyond recognition and will have to be identified using DNA testing, Baqar said.
Punjab Minister of Law Rana Sanaullah said the tanker driver had survived the crash and been taken into custody.
Additional reporting by AFP
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