20 injured in tanker, minibus collision

People gather at accident site to scoop up the oil, which had spilled out from the tanker.

KARACHI:

A minibus and an oil tanker collided at the Hub River Road in No. 2, Baldia Town on Sunday. The bus, route G-3, and tanker, TLK-681, both flipped over.

Passengers including Bakht Bibi, Aasma, Nasreen, Shahida, Aisha, Amina, Shumaila, Yusra, Azra, Zohaib, Raza Khan, Rehan, Fazal, Sadaqat, Muhammad Hussain, Manzoor, Aashiq and another unidentified woman and child were injured.

While the injured people were being moved to hospitals in ambulances, others gathered at the accident site to scoop up the oil, which had spilled out from the tanker. Hundreds of litres of furnace oil had pooled around the vehicle, which people started filling into drums and plastic bottles - at a serious safety risk.

They piled their loot into motorcycles, Suzuki pickups and even donkey carts. Police intervened and lashed out at the petty thieves but no arrests were made nor did the police take the oil back. The spill caused several motorcyclists to slip and many of them were injured. Meanwhile, there was also a terrible traffic jam at the road because of the accident and vehicles were stuck for hours.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 14^th, 2011.