At least 16 passengers died, while 45 were injured on Saturday in two traffic accidents involving vehicles that transported to the city of Sendh from Sindh ahead of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar.
In an incident, five people died and 10 were injured when the truck in which they were traveling crashed with a trailer near the city of Qazi Ahmed of the Shaheed Benazirabad district of Sindh, and on the other, 11 Punjab Burewala passengers died and others 35 Wounded in a road accident near Ranipur, Khairpur district.
Fatal traffic accidents on roads occur frequently in Pakistan, with the main reasons that include speeding, dangerous advancement and contempt for traffic rules.
The Qazi Ahmed Station Officer (SHO) Waseem Mirza confirmed the dead number to Dawn.comadding that the accident occurred in Amri Road near Qazi Ahmed.
According to Sho Mirza, the truck took the devotees to the sanctuary of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in the city of Sehwan of the Jamshoro district.
“The fast truck initially hit a donkey car followed by a large collision with a trailer from the opposite side,” said the police officer.
He added that initially, the rescue teams and the police arrived at the scene and transferred two bodies and the injured to the hospital Qazi Ahmed Taluka.
Some seriously injured people were referred to the University of Medical and Health Sciences of Peoples for Women in Nawabshah, where three were declared dead upon arrival.
Khairpur accident
Khairpur’s attached commissioner Ahmed Fawad Shah said a local bus came from Burewala when he crashed with a Rickshaw who was crossing the national road near Ranipur. The driver probably tried to save the Rickshaw.
He said 11 devotees died and 35 injured. The dead and injured were transferred to three different health centers, including Hingorja and Ranipur of the Rural Health Center (RHC), in addition to the Gambat Medicine and Science Institute (Gims) Khairpur.
According to the SSP Khairpur Tauheed Memon, the bus overturned after colliding with the Rickshaw. “All dead and injured come from Burewala and traveled to Sehwan to attend the Urs de Qalandar,” he said. Initially, the wounded and the dead were transferred to RHC, but now they were brought to the Gims Hospital, he added.
“All legal formalities are being completed and then the injured and dead will be transferred to Burewala, Vehari,” he said. He added that the Senior Police Superintendent and Vehari’s deputy commissioner was in contact with the Khairpur police and administration.
“We will provide transport and food,” he said. He added that he had visited the place to supervise the rescue operation. The SSP also said that injured and dead in the hospital were identified by legal formalities.
The URS of Qalandar will begin on February 19 (18 from Shabaan). The Sindh government has announced a holiday on February 19. Innumerable number of people converge in Sehwan every year to pay tribute to Qalandar, a saint suffered. In general, devotees begin to meet in Sehwan a couple of days before the beginning of the US and leave after a couple of days when US ends.
Mortal roads
According to an April report last year, citing officials, up to 115 people died and 317 were injured in a total of 97 traffic accidents in an incomplete section of the Indo road between Jamshoro and Sehwan for the last four years.
A day ago, five occupants of a car died and another six in a sports utility vehicle (SUV) were injured when the SUV from the wrong side of the Indo road got into the car near the city Sann de Jamshoro.
Last month, at least one person died and another 11 were injured when a bus bound for Karachi crashed with a stationary trailer near Nooriabad on the M-9 Karachi-Hyderabad highway. More than a week before that, two young people and a child were killed when two motorcycles were beaten by accelerated vehicles on the Indo road in Jamshoro.
On January 9, a fatal collision between two cars near Dhabeji in the Karachi-Thatta section of the National Highway charged four lives, even a man of newly married and his mother, and left six injured.
