HAFIZABAD (The Thursday Times) — At least five people were killed and 27 injured when a passenger bus carrying people to the Tablighi Ijtema plunged into a drain in Punjab’s Hafizabad district on Thursday, Rescue 1122 said.
The bus, travelling from Raiwind to Chiniot, crashed near a flyover in the Fatehki area of Pindi Bhattian tehsil, Dawn and Geo News reported. Rescue officials said the driver lost control because of overspeeding.
A crane was brought in with the help of the local administration to lift the bus, and the bodies of five victims were recovered from beneath it. Rescue teams kept searching amid fears that more passengers were trapped under the wreckage. Twenty of the injured were taken to hospital after first aid at the scene, and five rescue vehicles took part in the operation.
A deadly fortnight on the roads
Last week, 12 passengers were killed and about two dozen injured when a minibus and a coach collided head-on near Uthal on the Quetta–Karachi highway in Balochistan. Two days earlier, 10 people were killed and 44 injured when a bus overturned after hitting a road divider on the Indus Highway in Rajanpur district.
