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More than 120 killed in Pakistan train crash
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-07-13 10:57

More than 120 people were killed and hundreds injured in Pakistan on Wednesday when a passenger train crashed into another at a station and a third train then ploughed into the wreckage, police said.

Police and rescuers were searching through the twisted wreckage for more bodies and the toll from the pre-dawn disaster could rise to 150, a police commander said.

Relatives and family members of passengers travelling on Karachi-Lahore bound passenger train, look for information about accident at Karachi railway station, Wednesday, July 13, 2005 in Pakistan.[AP]

"I was sleeping. I woke up at the noise of a huge bang and then there was big jerk and smoke all over the place," said a distraught injured passenger, Mohammad Amin.

"There was total darkness ... I hit the floor and fainted," said Amin who was desperately searching for a son.

An express train coming from the eastern city of Lahore rammed into the rear of the Quetta Express stopped at Ghotki station for repairs, police said.

A Pakistani man surveys the wreckage of a coach after a train crash near Ghotki, 430 km (270 miles) northeast of Karachi, July 13, 2005. More than 120 people were killed and hundreds injured in Pakistan on Wednesday when a passenger train crashed into another at a station and a third train then ploughed into the wreckage, police said. [Reuters]

A third train, coming the other way, from Karachi, then ploughed into some of the derailed carriages, police said.

Ghotki, a small town in southern Sindh province, is 430 km northeast of Karachi.

Police said they had recovered at least 120 bodies and more were trapped in the wreckage.

The wreckage of carriages is seen after a train crash near Ghotki, 430 km (270 miles) northeast of Karachi July 13, 2005. [Reuters]

"I just can't give an exact death toll because a number of bodies are still in the wreckage but it is between 120 and 150," Ghotki police chief Agha Mohammad Tahir told Reuters.

"It is a very severe accident."

Nineteen carriages were derailed in all.

Officials said it was too early to determine the cause of the crash but a technical fault or negligence were suspected.

"NEGLIGENCE"

A Reuters photographer said he saw about 50 blood-soaked bodies lying near the scene of the crash.

Rescue workers and police struggled to reach the dead in the smashed compartments while many of the injured were being treated at the scene.

Others were searching for missing friends or relatives.

"It's a disaster, very clearly the result of negligence," said provincial government spokesman Salahuddin Haider.

"How can two trains be allowed to run on the same track?" he said, referring to the two express trains involved in the initial crash.

"Why was one train not stopped from coming on when one train was already standing there for repairs?"

Various opponents of the government, including nationalist tribesmen, have attacked and sabotaged railway lines in southern Pakistan but police also said the crash was believed to have been an accident.

"In my view it was a technical mistake," Tahir told private Geo television station.

In January 1990, a packed passenger train crashed into a freight train in southern Pakistan killing 307 people.

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