The bus left Turbat in the dark, bound for Quetta, and by about 5 a.m. on Wednesday it was at the bottom of a rocky ravine in Balochistan’s Washuk district. At least 28 people died.
Dawn reported that 22 others were injured. Ismail Mengal, the assistant commissioner of Basima, told the paper that a tyre burst, sending the vehicle into a hill before it went over the edge. Muhammad Ismail, another Washuk official, told Al Jazeera the bus crashed through a bridge. The driver was among the dead.
Officials gave different passenger counts. Noorullah Essazai, a government health official in Washuk, said 54 people were aboard. Mengal put the figure at 45 to 50. Among the dead were three women and three children, Mengal said.
Rescue and treatment
Six passengers died at the scene. The injured and the bodies were taken to Basima Civil Hospital, where 22 more people died of their injuries. Nine critical patients were transferred to the Combined Military Hospital in Khuzdar, a town about 120km (75 miles) away. The army was asked to fly four others in critical condition to the trauma centre in Quetta by helicopter, and 17 more were being treated in Washuk hospitals.
Essazai told Al Jazeera that eight to 10 patients were critically hurt and that arrangements were being made to get them to Quetta. Quetta lies about 750km (466 miles) north of Turbat.
Word was slow to reach officials. The site has no mobile network and no population nearby, Mengal said, so the Levies were late in getting the news. Rescue teams arrived as soon as they heard. Most of the dead had not yet been identified, and officials were approaching the Gwadar administration for help.
Reaction
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif sent condolences and told authorities to help the injured. “We stand with the bereaved families in this difficult time,” his office said. Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti said: “We will provide medical facilities at the earliest to those injured in the accident.”
National Party president Abdul Malik Baloch called for two-way roads in the province. “Speeding buses and single roads have claimed thousands of precious lives,” he said, and urged the government to adjust its budget.
Road accidents are common in Pakistan, particularly in the mountains of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Earlier in May, at least 20 people died when a passenger bus fell into a ravine in Gilgit-Baltistan.
Sources
- At least 28 killed after bus falls into ravine in Pakistan’s Balochistan
- 28 dead, 22 injured as Quetta-bound bus falls into ravine in Balochistan’s Washuk
