At least six people were killed and more than 100 injured when two trains collided in central Pakistan early yesterday, officials said.
The accident occurred when the Karachi-bound Awam Express passenger train rammed into a goods train that had stopped after running over a man near the city of Multan.
The train’s driver was trying to remove the body of the man who had been crushed to death while crossing the railway track when his own train was struck from behind.
Photo: AFP
Rescue workers used metal-cutting equipment to try to reach injured passengers still trapped in the mangled wreckage, a reporter at the scene said.
Mohammad Javed, 35, a shopkeeper who lives near the site of the crash said he had been woken up by “a huge blast.”
“I thought that some bomb had exploded,” he said. “I came out of my house and saw a passenger train had piled up on a goods train. I heard people crying in pain and many lying outside the train. Survivors and locals were pulling out wounded people who were stuck in the wreckage.”
State-run rescue service spokesman Abdul Jabbar said that more than 100 people had been hurt.
Others have said at least 150 people were injured.
Railway official Saima Bashir blamed the accident on the passenger train driver, saying he failed to heed a red signal that went up after the goods train had stopped.
Cranes and ambulances filled the area as army troops raced to the scene to help.
Rescue official Kalim Ullah six bodies and more than 100 injured passengers were taken to local hospitals. He said some of those injured were in a critical condition.
A three-day public holiday for the festival of Eid-al-Adha ended on Wednesday and many people were returning from their family homes to the cities where they work.
Additional reporting by AP
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not