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(Lahore) At least 22 people were killed in the collision with a train with a minibus on a level crossing in eastern Pakistan, the government announced on Friday, the umpteenth accident of its kind in the country.
Posted on July 3 2020 at 07 h 20
France Media Agency
“The level crossing was unattended and the driver of the van made a hasty decision by going to the tracks” in the city of Farooqabad, Pakistani railway spokesman Quratul Ain told AFP, adding that the passengers were all Sikh pilgrims.
” About 20 people were killed in the tragic collision. Two people subsequently died from their injuries, bringing the death toll to 22, “said the Pakistani Interior Ministry in a statement.
Earlier in the day, local police spokesman Wajid Abbas said that 18 people died – all from the same family – and eight others were in critical condition at the hospital. None of the train passengers were injured.
Prime Minister Imran Khan said he was “deeply saddened” on Twitter by the accident.
Transport in Pakistan, failing to comply with safety rules, records year after year a disastrous human toll.
Last October, 74 passengers on a train perished in the explosion of a gas cylinder transported by one of between them to cook on the way.
In February at least 18 people were killed and 51 injured when a train struck a bus, cutting it in half, on a railway crossing in southern Pakistan. In late May, the four passengers in a car died in the same circumstances in the east of the country.
“The stations and railways are deficient. Every passenger taking the train is in danger, “the Supreme Court observed in January, calling the national railway company the government's” most corrupt “entity.
“We still use the old railway line, built in 1861 “under the British colonial presence, the Minister of Railways Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed told AFP recently. “It is a collective failure of successive governments. “
Some 25 000 0 people die each year on Pakistani roads, according to a police official, despite a limited car fleet for a country of more than 200 millions of inhabitants.
The poor quality of roads, vehicles, the large number of drivers without a license and more generally the non-compliance with the rules are often cited to explain these figures.
