ISLAMABAD: At least seven people were killed and 15 others were injured in southwestern Pakistan after a passenger bus collided with a truck, state-run Radio Pakistan reported on Monday.
Motorway police told Arab News earlier that each year, 6,000 to 8,000 people die in accidents across the Balochistan province on single-lane roads nicknamed ‘killer highways’ spread over thousands of miles.
Balochistan, a mountainous, desert region bordering Afghanistan and Iran, is Pakistan’s largest but most impoverished province, with a staggering 40,000-kilometer network of road infrastructure. It is also the epicenter of the $64 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a road and infrastructure development plan that aims to ultimately provide the shortest route for Chinese cargo headed for the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia.
Major roads are slated for construction under CPEC, including the road from Balochistan’s Khuzdar district to the Chinese-funded, deepwater port of Gwadar. But for now, the absence of dual carriageways, inadequate training of drivers, and lack of patrolling mean thousands continue to die on Balochistan’s roads each year.
In June last year, 22 people were killed when a passenger bus veered off a narrow road and fell into a ravine in the Killa Saifullah district.
“Seven people were killed and more than fifteen others injured when a passenger bus collided with a truck near Killa Saifullah in Balochistan on Sunday night,” Radio Pakistan reported.
“According to Levies sources, the dead bodies and injured have been shifted to a nearby hospital," it added.
According to the National Road Safety Strategy 2018-2030, a report administered by the Asian Development Bank and citing police data, 6,548 people died at the scene of an accident on Pakistan’s roads in 2016, of which 355 fatalities happened on national highways and 6,003 on provincial roads.
Deputy Inspector-General of Motorway police South Zone, Tahir Allauddin Kasi, told Arab News on Monday that though the incident had occurred outside of the jurisdiction of motorway police, such incidents were taking place due to multiple reasons.
“The foremost [reason] is the lack of double carriage roads in Balochistan and almost all road accidents were head-on ones,” Kazi said.
The motorway police official said overspeeding and driving for long hours were also among other violations of traffic rules, which were contributing to more accidents.
“To have control over accidents, double carriage roads are essential. But we are also trying to enforce traffic rules besides running awareness campaigns at toll plazas and hotels to educate drivers,” he said.
The official said a tired driver, who is forced to drive for extra hours, cannot drive safely. “We are educating drivers besides penalizing them for violations,” he added.
Last year, former Balochistan government spokesman, Liaquat Shahwani, told Arab News that the province was now taking steps to ensure road safety, which included making the Quetta-Karachi highway into a dual carriageway.
The Balochistan government said it would also install trackers in buses to control speeding, with 14 medical emergency response centers set up.
