12 die, 25 injured in Karak, Haripur road accidents

KARAK/ HARIPUR: Twelve passengers were killed and 25 others were injured in two separate road accidents in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Tuesday.

Police officials said that 10 passengers, including women and children, were killed and eight others seriously injured when a speedy tractor-trolley collided with a Peshawar-bound passenger van on the Indus Highway Karak district.

The officials said that the van was on its way to Peshawar from North Waziristan and the accident occurred in the jurisdiction of Kara Police Station. According to doctors, 10 bodies and eight injured were brought to the District Headquarters Hospital Karak. Those killed in the accident included Naseemullah, Mullah Khan, Naik Mali Khan, Bashirullah, Mastamina and Masti Khan. The identity of the two children who have been killed in the accident could not be ascertained.

Meanwhile, two passengers were killed and 13 others, including three foreign nationals and a teenage girl, injured when a Rawalpindi-bound passenger bus fell into a roadside drain near Shah Maqsood Interchange, some 6 kms from district headquarters, on the Hazara Motorway. The cause of the accident, according to police, was reckless driving while the injured passengers claimed the accident occurred when the driver dozed off.

Police officials quoted the passengers as saying that the Rawalpindi-bound NATCO company’s bus, left Gilgit during the early hours of Tuesday and the driver lost control of the wheels when it reached near Shah Maqsood interchange of Hazara Motorway at around 6:30 am, and the speeding bus fell into the roadside drain, leaving 18 passengers injured.

The area people and rescue workers shifted the injured to Haripur Trauma centre where two of the eight injured were declared dead, five of them sustained serious injuries and the rest of 11 slightly injured, said Dr Munawar Khan Afridi, Medical Superintendent District Headquarters Hospital. He said five of the injured were shifted to Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences Islamabad while the rest were discharged after first aid.

The deceased passengers, according to Dr Afridi and police records, were identified as Masroor, 55, resident of Yasin Gilgit and Zameer Abbas, 42, resident of Astor. Among the injured, according to police and hospital records, were three foreigners, including John, a Czech Republic’s citizen and two Chinese, Zu Chongzhi and Lyu Li Dong.