By DPA
Islamabad : More than 50 people were feared killed Wednesday after a passenger train packed with Muslim holiday travellers derailed in southern Pakistan, and rescue workers were still searching the wreckage for possible survivors.
The accident occurred at 2:25 a.m. when 15 wagons on a 17-carriage express train from Karachi bound for Lahore jumped the rails near the town of Naushero Feroze in Sindh province, said Mohammed Ali Chachar, deputy controller of the Pakistan Railways regional headquarters in Sukur.
More than 100 injured passengers were taken to nearby hospitals, and authorities said they feared the death toll would rise because passengers were still trapped in the wreckage.
“There are around 20 people still entangled under a coach,” Chachar said. “We think those 20 are dead.”
However, Abdulhadi Bullo, a district police officer at the crash scene, said only 18 people were confirmed dead and that at least four people trapped under the mangled carriage were alive.
“I spoke to them myself,” he told DPA, adding that he also saw bodies inside the carriage.
A rescue train was dispatched to clear the wreckage, some 230 km north of Karachi, and paramilitary soldiers arrived on the scene to help in the search and rescue effort.
“We do not have sufficient facilities to give treatment to the injured,” said Usman Rahad, the head doctor in Mahrabpur. “Our hospital has only 12 beds and there are dozens and dozens of injured. The injured are lying in the open and even on the railway line.”
There were around 700 people aboard the train, which was packed with travellers on the eve of the Eid-ul-Zuha festival, during which millions of Pakistanis go to their hometowns.
DawnNews TV reported that travellers aboard the doomed train included a wedding party, which had rented a private carriage.
Crash survivor Abdul Qadir told Aaj TV that the overcrowded train was moving at a fast speed, possibly because it was three hours behind schedule.
“Around 2:30 a.m., it derailed and it was completely dark in the carriage,” he said. “I saw death so close to me that at one point I was sure I would never survive.”