Nine killed as marble mine collapses in Buner

DAGGAR: At least nine labourers were killed and eight others sustained injuries when a marble mine collapsed in Bampokha village in Buner district on Saturday, official sources said.

The sources said that some 20 trucks were parked near a marble mine in Bampokha when all of a sudden a landslide took place. They said that nine vehicles were buried under the rubble after the landslide. Deputy Commissioner Muhammad Khalid, District Police Officer Sohail Khalid, Col Meraj Alam and other officials reached the site of the incident after the incident.

The rescue operation was launched wherein bodies of seven persons were recovered and eight injured were rescued. Efforts were being made to recover the bodies of rest of the labourers. The district administration declared emergency at the District Headquarters Hospital in Daggar where the injured were admitted. The doctors said that the seriously injured were shifted to hospitals in Peshawar and Mardan. The dead were identified as Fazal Ghani, Qadeem, Saidur Rehman, Hazrat Hussain, Fazal Khan, Farman and Kamran, Fazal Ghafoor, Furqan. Some of the injured included Sher Akbar Khan, Raj Muhammad, Abdul Ghafoor, Fazal Wahab, Ibrahim and Nadeem. Meanwhile, a large number of people reached the hospital to donate blood for the injured. Meanwhile, the Awami National Party (ANP) provincial president Aimal Wali Khan and Sardar Hussain Babak expressed deep sorrow over the loss of precious lives in the landslide. They asked the party workers in Buner to stand by the families of the mine victims, adding, the government should announce ‘Shuhada’ package for the families of the deceased labourers.