A speeding passenger coach overturned on Indus Highway’s highly accident-prone stretch between Jamshoro and Sehwan, leaving 10 passengers dead and more than 20 people injured earlier yesterday.
The accident took place near the rural town of Sann, some 90 kilometres off Hyderabad when the driver lost control of the bus, which took several spins before landing upside down, injured passengers said at the hospital.
The coach was carrying passengers from the Sindh-Balochistan border district of Osta Muhammad to Karachi. It took more than an hour for the rescue workers and police to reach the spot and pull out the victims.
Two children and three women were among the dead. An infant named Kainat, two-year-old Naimat Bhatti and her father 30-year-old Jameel Bhatti, Ajeena Baloch, 25, Shaukat Ali Jamali, 27, Shahzad Dahot, 40, Husna Brohi, Marvi Baloch and Haji Sher were the deceased named as one body of a man remained unidentified.
The injured passengers were initially taken to a rural health centre in Sann before being shifted to the taluka hospital. Many of the injured believed some of the lives could have been saved by timely rescue.
Zahid Umrani, a local resident, said people from nearby localities tried for an hour to pull out trapped passengers before the ambulances and police reached. The volunteers shifted the victims to the health centre in their own vehicles.
Passenger Ayub Magsi recalled the driver seemed to have lost control of the coach at least three times before the accident took place.
He added three to four of the deceased died of suffocation due to the delayed rescue.
The 136-kilometre stretch of the Indus Highway between Jamshoro and Sehwan witnesses frequent accidents due to sharp curves on the single road.
The accidents dramatically increase during the three-day Urs of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan, as hundreds of thousands of devotees flock to the small town.
In another accident yesterday, a truck carrying devotees to Sehwan had flipped over, injuring 17 passengers. The injured were taken to the Sehwan taluka hospital.
The Urs is slated to begin today (May 25).
