QUETTA: One person was killed while 44 others were injured in southwestern Pakistan this week when an oil tanker exploded after catching fire, a government official confirmed on Tuesday.
The incident took place at an oil depot in Balochistan province’s Nushki city on Monday afternoon when a tanker filled with fuel caught fire due to welding work nearby, police said. In footage widely shared on social media platforms, dozens of people can be seen fleeing the tanker as it explodes, with thick black smoke and flames leaping into the sky.
Nushki Deputy Commissioner Amjad Soomro told Arab News 44 people standing close to the burning oil tanker were injured after it exploded. Nushki police said the driver of the tanker drove the burning vehicle from the oil depot and parked it in an open field.
“The driver who drove the burning tanker out from an oil depot was killed on the spot,” Soomro told Arab News.
Waseem Baig, the spokesperson for the provincial health department, said 35 people were admitted to the Civil and Bolan Medical hospitals on Monday for burn injuries.
“Twenty-one injured of the Nushki oil tanker explosion are being shifted to Karachi due to severe burn wounds via the army’s C-130 airplane,” Baig said.
Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti expressed grief over the incident, directing authorities to provide immediate and quality medical care to the injured, as per Pakistani newspaper Dawn.
“A complete and transparent investigation into the Nushki incident has been ordered,” Bugti was quoted as saying by Dawn.
Oil tanker explosions can be caused by several factors such as collisions, overheating of the engine or overfilling which can build unnecessary pressure on the tank.
In 2017, 212 people were killed in Pakistan when a tanker carrying 40,000 liters of fuel overturned after trying to make a sharp turn while traveling from Pakistan’s Karachi city to Lahore on a highway.
One killed, 44 injured in oil tanker explosion in southwestern Pakistan
https://arab.news/66ftp
One killed, 44 injured in oil tanker explosion in southwestern Pakistan
- Oil tanker exploded after it caught fire due to welding work nearby, say police
- Twenty-one injured being shifted to Karachi for treatment, says health official
Imran Khan not a ‘national security threat,’ ex-PM’s party responds to Pakistan military
- Pakistan’s military spokesperson on Friday described Khan’s anti-army narrative as a “national security threat”
- PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan says words used by military spokesperson for Khan were “not appropriate”
ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party on Saturday responded to allegations by Pakistan military spokesperson Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry from a day earlier, saying that he was not a “national security threat.”
Chaudhry, who heads the military’s media wing as director general of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), spoke to journalists on Friday, in which he referred to Khan as a “mentally ill” person several times during the press interaction. Chaudhry described Khan’s anti-army narrative as a “national security threat.”
The military spokesperson was responding to Khan’s social media post this week in which he accused Chief of Defense Forces Field Marshal Asim Munir of being responsible for “the complete collapse of the constitution and rule of law in Pakistan.”
“The people of Pakistan stand with Imran Khan, they stand with PTI,” the party’s secretary-general, Salman Akram Raja, told reporters during a news conference.
“Imran Khan is not a national security threat. Imran Khan has kept the people of this country united.”
Raja said there were several narratives in the country, including those that created tensions along ethnic and sectarian lines, but Khan had rejected all of them and stood with one that the people of Pakistan supported.
PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan, flanked by Raja, criticized the military spokesperson as well, saying his press talk on Thursday had “severely disappointed” him.
“The words that were used [by the military spokesperson] were not appropriate,” Gohar said. “Those words were wrong.”
‘NATURAL OUTCOME’
Speaking to reporters earlier on Saturday, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif defended the military spokesperson’s remarks against Khan.
“When this kind of language is used for individuals as well as for institutions, then a reaction is a natural outcome,” he said.
“The same thing is happening on the Twitter accounts being run in his [Khan’s] name. If the DG ISPR has given any reaction to it, then I believe it was a very measured reaction.”
Khan, who was ousted after a parliamentary vote of confidence in April 2022, blames the country’s powerful military for removing him from power by colluding with his political opponents. Both deny the allegations.
The former prime minister, who has been in prison since August 2023 on a slew of charges he says are politically motivated, also alleges his party was denied victory by the army and his political rivals in the 2024 general election through rigging.
The army and the government both deny his allegations.
