According to a district official, at least 30 passengers perished and over 80 were injured when a train crashed.
A senior railway officer in Nawabshah, Pakistan revealed that around ten carriages of the Hazara Express derailed as the train passed near the Sarhari Station between Karachi and Rawalpindi.
Hundreds of people at the scene were seen climbing the train and smashing windows to help passengers get out of the twisted and overturned coaches.
Rescue workers transported patients to the adjacent People’s Hospital in Nawabshah, sparking an emergency in the regional hospital and the dispatch of army rescue forces.
According to the local press The Federal Minister for Railways and Aviation, Saad Rafique, stated that officials will prioritize the rescue before researching the cause.
Other videos circulated locally showed individuals carrying bodies from around and under the track.
Part of the train was seen to have fallen into a murky body of water, filthy by train items.
Onlookers were powerless to intervene as others jumped onboard the train in search of survivors.
Rescuers were seen cautiously bringing down an elderly woman who had escaped the incident in other footage.
“We have suspended train movement on the main railway line until repair trains are dispatched to the location,” the senior railway officer Mohsin Sayal stated.
Officials also confirmed that alternate transportation and medical services will be made available to train passengers.
Train accidents frequently happened on badly maintained railway tracks in Pakistan, where colonial-era communications and signal systems have not been modernized and safety standards are weak.
In June 2021, two trains crashed at Daharki in Sindh, killing at least 65 people and injuring over 150 more.
In that incident, an express train derailed into the opposite track, and a second passenger train plowed into the wreckage about a minute later.
In October 2019, a fire aboard the Tezgam express train killed at least 75 passengers, while a two-train crash near Ghotki killed more than 100 people in 2005.
Passenger Train Derails, Killing 30 With Over 80 Others Severely Injured pic.twitter.com/NnB6wxn6pg
— Mecha Kingsley Ukpai (@KingingGroup) August 6, 2023
