Rafique doesn’t rule out sabotage as cause of train derailment,
NAWABSHAH – At least 37 passengers were killed and 70 others suffered injuries after 11 bogies of Hazara Express derailed near Sarhari Railway Station, located between Shahzadpur and Nawabshah, on Sunday, witnesses and police said.
The train was on its way from Karachi to Rawalpindi when at least eights of its bogies derailed.
The passenger train was carrying a good number of passengers. Locals and passengers launched rescue activities and started pulling the trapped passengers out of wreckage of derailed bogies.
An emergency has been declared in nearby hospitals while the rescue operation is also underway. The injured victims are being shifted to People’s Medical Hospital Nawabshah.
The cause of derailment is not yet known as officials reached the scene to probe the incident. Train operations on the up track have been put on suspension after the incident.
Railways Divisional Superintendent Sukkur Mahmoodur Rahman confirmed that 10 bogies had gone off track in the train crash. More details are being obtained, he added.
He said a train has been dispatched from Kotri for assistance.
Pakistan Army troops also joined the relief activities at the site of accident on the directions of Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Asim Munir.
Additional troops were also called in from Hyderabad and Sakrand with army aviation helicopters.
Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique has said that an act of sabotage could be among the reasons for the derailment of multiple coaches of Hazara Express which killed more than a dozen people.
“There could be two possible reasons for the accident. Either it is a mechanical fault in the line or a fault was developed. It could be an act of sabotage or mechanical fault,” he told reporters at a press conference in Lahore on Sunday.
But he said that the federal government inspector of railways would decide what the reason for the accident was.
