11 killed, 26 injured as bus rams into tractor-trolley

Punjab leads in number of road accident deaths

MULTAN: At least 11 people were killed in a collision between a passenger bus and tractor-trolley in Layyah District on Wednesday, police said.

As many as 26 people were also injured when the Rawalpindi-bound bus collided with a tractor-trolley and then rammed into a tree on Layyah's Karor Road as a result of over-speeding, the police said. The bus was carrying passengers from Karachi. Women and children were among the 11 people killed in the accident.



Soon after the incident, the injured were shifted to District Headquarters Hospital while four passengers were shifted to Multan's Nishtar Hospital in a critical condition. Doctors at the hospital said the victims were being provided medical treatment and efforts were being made to save their lives.

Rescue officials said that some passengers were also travelling on the roof of the bus which led to higher number of casualties. The police said the incident occurred due to reckless driving.

Road accidents are one of the leading causes of deaths in Pakistan. The people who die on the roads in Pakistan mostly include those falling in the age bracket of 15 to 29 years.

According to a report issued by World Health Organisation, 30,310 or 2.69% of people in Pakistan were killed in road accidents each year. About 20 people out of 100,000 die in road accidents in a year, making Pakistan rank 67th in the world for higher percentage of road accidents.

Similarly, the report by World Health Organisation stated that by 2030, road accidents will become fifth major cause of deaths. Meanwhile, from the data collected over the past 10 years, 15 people die each day in traffic accidents across Pakistan. Punjab has proven to have the highest road accident deaths, followed by Sindh, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan.



A report released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics in 2014 revealed that a total of 8,885 accidents were registered by police in which 4,672 people were killed. The report also mentioned that from 2004 to 2013, a total of 51,416 people died in 97,739 accidents across the country.

Out of the total number of people reported dead, 29,524 were killed in Punjab, 9,639 in Sindh, 9,494 in KPK and 2,250 in Baluchistan. The major cause of road accidents were violation of traffic rules, ignoring road signs and signals, over-speeding, reckless driving, using mobile phones while driving and other factors.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, July 6^th, 2017.