Nothing must have seemed out of place to the regulars – railway workers, vendors, passengers – of Landhi station. Neither were the residents of the nearby residential colonies expecting such a devastating morning.
It was around 6am and they were going about their mundane daily routines with not even the slightest thought of what was to come.
Same was the case for the hundreds onboard the Fareed Express from Lahore. When their train must've ground to a halt, nonchalance would've been the general response as some passengers disembarked and the few coolies on duty rallied for customers.
A normal day. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Blindsided. That's what they all were over the next few moments.
It would be fascinating to record the reaction – that very first instant – of the first person near the Landhi platform who would've spotted the other shimmering mass of metal hurtling in.
The mass in question was the Zakaria Express, arriving in Karachi from Multan with hundreds of passengers who too must’ve had little to no idea of what lay ahead, and within seconds of that person's sighting it, the train had rammed headfirst into the back of the stationary Fareed Express.
Deafening, huge, thunderous – words people have since used to describe the sound of the collision.
Bone-chilling, though, was a word aptly used by a survivor to describe what she heard after the initial metal on metal crash sound had subsided.
Screams ascending to shrieks, cries into bawls – woman, child and man all one in agony.
A haunting crescendo driven by pain was what the first responders – all residents of nearby areas including Qaddafi Town, Jumma Goth, Muzaffarabad Colony, Cattle Colony – worked amid as they tried to help whoever was accessible in the mangled wreckage.
Adding to the sounds was the sight of wounded babies, men and women; also the smell of blood, oil and utter human desperation. It was, indeed, a tragedy most harrowing.
With an investigation ongoing, all there is to ascertain cause are official statements and general speculations. Some, including the federal railways minister, say the driver of the incoming train ignored signals; others say officials mistakenly flagged him through.
The human cost
Until the probe team publishes their findings as regards the cause, we should focus on the effect. In this tragedy, the effect was 20 lives instantly ended and almost the same figure forced into a battle for life.
Behind these dispassionately quoted numbers, though, are real people with lives as real as ours.
Here's what a few brought to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre had to share with The News:
“We were returning from a wedding. My younger son is on the opposite bed but the elder, who is 22 years old, is in Ward 14. The doctors say he has lost both of his legs,” said a visibly distraught Zawar Hussain, 47, as he lay on a hospital bed, his head covered in a bloodied bandage.
In the JPMC’s Emergency Ward, around 16 patients were resting in the High Dependency Unit (HDU) catering to the injured brought from the crash site in Landhi.
Recalling the fateful moments, Hussain, who is a labourer by profession, said he could only remember the train coming to a halt. “Suddenly, there was a loud collision. I lost consciousness and woke up here [at the hospital],” he said.
The newlyweds whose wedding Hussain and his family had gone to attend were also on the train and, fortunately, remained unscathed.
Saeed, Hussain’s daughter-in-law who was admitted to the female section of the ward, explained the situation in more detail, “We were 10 people in total and had gone to Vehari to attend a cousin’s wedding. I was travelling with my in-laws, sister and two children. My three-year-old son has been hurt too, but his injuries were not serious and my husband has taken him outside for a while.”
She was not the only female member of the family under treatment, as her sister and mother-in-law were also being administered first aid in the same room. “I was sound asleep when a thundering noise woke me up. It was a split second; the next thing I remember was being under a heap of rubble, only able to see a portion of blue sky. Soon, there were desperate cries for help ringing out all around,” said Saeed.
“I am glad we are all alive, but I am most thankful that my husband did not get a leave from work. Otherwise, he too would have been with us.”
While patients with critical injuries were being treated in a separate ward, those who suffered fractures and the likes were shifted to the orthopaedic ward and grouped together in the same area for better facilitation.
Right at the end of Ward 14, Waqas, 12, winced in pain as his mother explained that flesh from his back had been ripped out when an iron rod pierced into his body, and that his hip bone was also broken.
“I was standing at the time of the crash. Everything shook violently and everyone fell down. We were upside down. My father was also buried under the rubble. I thought I would faint, but I didn’t and was soon calling out for help. After a while some men came to help us. I thought a person in our section had passed away because his eyes were shut, but I hope he was only unconscious,” recounted Waqas.
His mother explained that Waqas was returning from his grandfather’s ‘chaleeswan’ in Okara and had been specially sent owing to his father’s ailing health. “His father hasn’t been too well so I decided to send Waqas with him to Okara. I was stunned when we received a call from the hospital because, just a while before that, my husband had called to inform that they had reached Karachi safely.”
Six-year-old Muhammad Ali, who sat in a corner of the ward, was a little too excited to share details of the accident.
“My father was sleeping on the berth above when the collision occurred; we all were in another corner. My father was buried under the fallen luggage, while my brother’s foot was stuck under the door.”
“I shouted at the top of my lungs and soon these uncles came and I helped them dislodge my brother’s foot. We were off the train soon, but my parents were hurt and my father is still in the other room receiving treatment,” said Ali, pointing at his own little foot covered in a bandage.
Ali’s parents had gone to Punjab to fix a date for his eldest brother’s wedding, who had not accompanied the four of them.
While most people in the HDU worked and lived in the city, a woman named Malka, who was nursing a broken shoulder, was travelling from Punjab to meet her son in Karachi; little did she know that he would be receiving her not at the railway station but at a hospital. — Additional input by Usman Mir
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