Sixteen people were killed and two others injured on Wednesday when a passenger van and a truck collided with each other on the Indus Highway near Manjhand town of Sindh’s Jamshoro district.
The people killed in road mishap and the injured belonged to the Solangi and Kalhoro communities, who lived in the same area of Kandiaro town of Naushahro Feroze.
The van was transporting passengers from Naushahro Feroze to Karachi while the truck was heading towards Sehwan town of Jamshoro.
The head-on collision crushed the van's front side. The residents and the police pulled out the bodies and the injured from the van and initially shifted them to a hospital in Manjhand.
The critically injured were later shifted to Liaquat University Hospital, Jamshoro and then to Liaquat University Hospital, Hyderabad.
Jamshoro SSP Javed Ahmed Baloch has confirmed 16 deaths in the accident.
The deceased include 35-year-old Altaf Solangi, 35-year-old Asif Kalhoro, 32-year-old Sajid Solangi, 30-year- old Shafi Muhammad Kalhoro, 30-year-old Mashooq Solangi, 30-year-old Ahsaan, 30-year-old Shakeel Kalhoro, 28-year-old Mashooq Kalhoro, 21-year-old Sikandar Kalhoro and 18-year-old Rahib Solangi. A woman is also among those killed in the tragedy.
District and the motorway police officials have held the truck driver responsible for the accident. The officials added that his truck was moving on the lane marked for vehicles coming from the opposite direction. The truck driver also passed away in the accident.
Read: Four, including two brothers, die in accidents
Manjhand SHO Sadiq Solangi said most of those killed in the accident were labourers, who were heading towards the Shershah area of Karachi for jobs.
The bodies were transported to Kandiaro by the Edhi Foundation. The incident's FIR has not been lodged so far although the truck has been impounded.
The residents of Manjhand staged a protest outside the hospital and barred its medical superintendent, Noorullah Larik, from entering the medical facility. They decried that the hospital was not equipped to treat the patients injured in the accidents, which happen on a daily basis on the highway.
The medical superintendent was later escorted by the police to enter the hospital.
An ambulance van of the hospital which was supposed to immediately transfer the injured patients to Liaquat University Hospital, Jamshoro also did not start before it was pushed by over half a dozen men. Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah has taken notice of the incident. Expressing his regret over the accident, he instructed Hyderabad's commissioner, deputy commissioner and senior superintendent of police to extend all possible cooperation to the bereaved families.
Jamshoro Deputy Commissioner Fariduddin Mustafa said the accident occurred on a section of the Indus Highway where development work on two lanes of the highway was delayed by the National Highway Authority (NHA).
He added that work on the portion was delayed due to the contractor being blacklisted and the NHA was said to be in the process of going for re-tendering.
The Indus Highway has become a deadly thoroughfare because it is a single-lane road with no barrier between the two directions in which the vehicles travel.
The highway carries a large volume of traffic. The highway's expansion from the existing two lanes to four lanes is facing delays because of budgetary constraints.
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