At least 9 killed as vehicle falls into Indus near Battagram

BATTAGRAM:

At least nine people, including women and children, were killed in a road mishap in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s (K-P) Battagram district after the driver of their vehicle lost control, plunging the vehicle into the Indus River.

Out of the 25 reported passengers, 22 were going to the Jambera area of the district from Thakot.
The mishap also seriously injured 17 people, while reportedly up to four drowned in the river. So far, nine bodies have been recovered while others are missing, and a search is underway.

After the incident, an emergency was imposed in DHQ Battagram. RHC Thakot and the additional deputy commissioner and assistant commissioner immediately reached the accident site and personally supervised relief operations.

Local people, especially local divers, took part in the rescue operation. Rescue 1122 also conducted operations even in the dark of the night but the bodies of the missing individuals could not be fished out till the time of filing of this report.

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Last month, 18 people died and five others sustained injuries, two of them critically, after a passenger van fell into a ditch that was filled with rainwater alongside a section of the Indus Highway near the Sehwan Toll Plaza.

The passenger van, reportedly carrying devotees of Hazrat Lal Shahbaz Qalandar from Khairpur Mir to Sehwan, veered off the main road near the Sehwan Toll Plaza, where a cut was given to the road to channel the floodwater towards River Indus.

The locals as well as those travelling on the highway volunteered to pull out the bodies from the water before the police and rescue teams reached the spot. All the dead and injured were shifted to Abdullah Shah Institute of Medical and Health Sciences in Sehwan, Jamshoro district.