Fatal accident: 10 people dead as coach collides with truck

Surviving passengers, passers-by give different accounts of what went wrong.

HYDERABAD: Ten people were killed and 30 were injured when a Larkana-bound coach collided with a long truck on Indus Highway near Khanote Town, Jamshoro district, on Tuesday.

The deceased were identified as Shamshad Soomro, Zubeda Khawar, and Khursheed Bhatti, Ali Muhammad Chandio, Muhammad Saleem Thalho, Arif Ali Brohi, Gulzar Waryam Phulpoto, Amir Abbass, Sahib Khan Abbassi and Waryam Bhatti. The injured, including drivers of both the vehicles, were shifted to Liaquat University Hospital, Jamshoro. At least a dozen were undergoing medical treatment, five of whom are reportedly in critical condition.

Sarang Soomro, one of the injured persons, said that the driver had already lost control of the coach due to over-speeding, when it was hit by the truck.

According to the Khanote police station SHO, Ibrahim Shah, the coach tipped over several times before landing in a deep ditch.

Yar Muhammad, who lives in Sachal Goth in Karachi, was sitting on the front row seat. He said that the accident happened when the driver swerved the coach to avoid hitting carcass of a donkey which was placed on the road. “As the driver lost control, the truck coming from the opposite direction hit the rear part of the bus making it rotate before overturning on the ground.”

Many passengers, he added, were trampled by the coach as they fell outside from the windows before the coach hit the ground.

According to retired DSP Shafique Mohammad Soomro, the coach’s suspension or engine had some fault. “When we were crossing the toll plaza on the Super Highway - the highway between Karachi and Hyderabad - the coach developed some problem. Later, the driver stopped it at a workshop in Jamshoro for a brief examination.” The accident, he said, happened half an hour after they left the workshop.

Majid Ali, a passerby who stopped to help the injured, said that they found three women and six men who were dead by the time their bodies were taken out from under the coach. The accident’s impact was so severe that the coach split into two pieces and its roof detached from the body, carrying it with itself the luggage placed over it.

No FIR was registered till the filing of this report.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 10^th, 2013.