19 children among 21 killed in Pakistan road accident

PESHAWAR/KARACHI: At least 21 people, including women and children, died in a road accident in Sindh’s Nawabshah town in Pakistan on Wednesday.
The van collided with the loaded dump-truck in the town of Nawabshah, around 270 km north of Karachi in the southern province of Sindh.
The children, who were students of the Bright Future School from the nearby town of Daulatpur, had come to Nawabshah for a school trip.
“It was a head-on collision when the truck slammed into the school van on a single track dirt road. Apparently, speeding and recklessness resulted in the accident,” Abdul Rahim Gopang, a police officer, said.
Television channels showed footage of parents running into a hospital in Nawabshah, frantically looking for their children.
“All our dreams have been shattered. How can I live without my child,” a weeping Muhammad Akram, who lost his only son in the accident, said by telephone from the hospital.
Their van was on its way back to Daulatpur when the accident happened, he said.
Dr. Hashim Langa, chief of the government-run Civil Hospital in Nawabshah, said the hospital had received 21 dead bodies out of which 19 were children.
“Their ages range from five or six to 16,” he told AFP. Apart from the dead, some 15 to 20 injured were also brought to the hospital, seven of whom were in intensive care and neurological wards, he added.
Police said that they were trying to locate the driver of the truck who had fled the scene. Senior police officer Asif Ali Pechuho told AFP that the school van had been so badly wrecked that rescue workers had to use tools to extract bodies.
The driver of the school van was among the dead, he added.
In another incident, seven people died and 20 others injured when a bus rammed into a van near Nawabshah in southern province of Sindh. Police said a passenger bus going from Karachi to Bannu collided with a van at Bypass Road near Nawabshah city. As a result seven people died on the spot. Eyewitnesses said the van was being recklessly driven and its driver failed to apply brakes. Drivers of both vehicles fled after the accident.
Pakistan has one of the world’s worst records for fatal traffic accidents, blamed on poor roads, badly maintained vehicles and reckless driving.