Three Pakistani trains crash, 128 killed

By Faisal Aziz

GHOTKI, Pakistan (Reuters) – A crowded Pakistani passenger
train rammed into another at a station on Wednesday and a third
train plowed into the wreckage killing 128 people and injuring
170, officials said.

In all, almost 2,000 people were aboard the trains, a
railway official said, many of them asleep at the time of the
pre-dawn disaster.

Officials said the driver of one of the trains had
apparently missed a signal to stop, setting the disaster in
motion.

“I was sleeping. I woke up at the noise of a huge bang and
then there was a 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.

The Karachi Express, coming from the eastern city of
Lahore, rammed into the rear of the Quetta Express which had
stopped at a station near Ghotki town for repairs, police said.

A third train, coming the other way, from the port city of
Karachi, then plowed into three derailed carriages that had
spilled across the track, police said.

Ghotki, in southern Sindh province, is 430 km (270 miles)
northeast of Karachi.

A Reuters photographer said he saw about 50 blood-soaked
bodies lying near the crash site while many injured were being
treated nearby.

Three compartments were completely crushed and two cranes
had been brought in to hoist the compacted wreckage apart as
police and rescue workers searched for bodies.

In all, 128 people were killed and 170 injured, 12 of them
critically, said Ishaq Khan Khakwani, state minister for
railways.

“All bodies have been removed from the site and sent to
mortuaries and hospitals,” he told Reuters.

President Pervez Musharraf, who visited the crash scene,
ruled out sabotage.

“It’s clear that it was not sabotage, rather, in my view,
it might be carelessness,” he told state-run television.

Pakistan Railways officials pointed the finger of blame at
the driver of the train that rammed the stationary one.

“NEGLIGENCE”

“The driver of the Karachi Express violated the signal and
the accident apparently happened because of his mistake,” the
chairman of Pakistan Railways, Shakeel Durrani, told reporters.

Senior railway official Junaid Qureshi agreed.

“He either ignored the red signal or he was snoozing,”
Qureshi told Reuters, referring to the driver, whom he said was
among the dead.

Debris including luggage from smashed compartments was
scattered across a wide area as rescuers picked their way
through twisted piles of metal and wood.

Passengers, some of them injured, could also be seen
searching for missing friends and relatives.

Relatives of railway workers and passengers gathered at
Karachi’s main station.

“Nobody’s telling me where he is,” said a weeping Farida
Naz, referring to her husband who worked in the dining car of
the third train. “I don’t know if he’s alive or not.”

“Please God, give my brother to me,” Aslam Pervez muttered
over and over as he waited for news.

A military spokesman said troops and helicopters were
helping get the injured to hospital.

In Pakistan’s worst train crash, in 1990, 307 people were
killed when a packed passenger train smashed into a freight
train, also in Sindh province. A train crash in Punjab province
in 1997 killed 136.