Engineers in Pakistan yesterday combed the mangled wreckage of two trains that collided in a remote farming region, killing dozens of people.
At least 63 people were killed early on Monday when a high-speed passenger train knifed through cars of another express that had derailed minutes earlier near Daharki in Sindh Province.
Army and civil engineers had cleared much of the wreckage of railcars crushed like tin cans in the collision, while welders were repairing damaged rails.
A heavy stench of diesel, sweat and blood hung over the scene, with workers saying that bodies were still being pulled overnight from mangled cars.
“This is the most colossal accident I have seen in about 10 years of service,” railway engineer Jahan Zeb told reporters, his eyes puffy from sleeplessness.
The Millat Express was heading from Karachi to Sargodha when it derailed, its cars strewn over the tracks as the Sir Syed Express from Rawalpindi arrived minutes later in the opposite direction, smashing into it.
It is not known what caused the Millat Express to jump its tracks, but Pakistani Minister of the Interior Sheikh Rasheed — a former railways minister — described that section of the line as “a shambles,” while Pakistani Minister of Railways Azam Swati called it “really dangerous.”
Sindh Deputy Commissioner Usman Abdullah said that 63 people had died in the crash, issuing two lists that named 51 people and marked 12 others as unidentified.
Khan Mohammad, station master at nearby Reti junction, said that more lives could have been saved if they had just a few more minutes after the derailment.
“I saw a six-or-seven-year-old girl trapped underneath the locomotive, her knee stuck in the track,” he said. “We somehow rescued her and she was miraculously alive.”
Then the oncoming train hit.
“If there had been a delay of about 10 minutes, this accident could have been averted,” he said.
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