Tragedy: Chaman road crash leaves eight dead

Speeding bus rams into a car on Quetta-Chaman road.

QUETTA: At least eight people, including three children, were killed when a Chaman-bound car collided head-on with a bus coming from the opposite direction on Quetta-Chaman RCD Highway on Sunday.

According to Balochistan Levies, the speeding passenger bus en route to Quetta from Qilla Abdullah hit the car near Saranan area, killing all eight people on board.

Iftikhar Bugti, the assistant commissioner of Qilla Abdullah, blamed the bus driver for the fatal accident. “Over-speeding by the bus driver caused the crash,” he added. Levies personnel have mounted a manhunt for the bus driver who had fled the scene soon after the accident.

Bodies of the victims were shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital Pishin. The dead were identified as Hayatullah, Baran Khan, Asmat, Fida and Hafeez. The dead children could not be identified till the filing of this report.

Separately, a man was killed and another injured in a road crash in the Hub area of Othal district.

According to the local police, two motorcycles had a head-on collision on the Quetta-Karachi highway in the Hub area. As a result, a man, identified as Abdul Aziz, died on the spot while another, Suneel Kumar, sustained injuries and was shifted to the nearby state-run hospital.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 3^rd, 2014.