Police officials said a truck carrying timber was on its way from Vehari to Lahore on the Lahore-Multan National Highway.
PHOTO: FILE
Fourteen people including five women and three children died in a road accident involving a passenger van and a truck in Burewala, Vehari, on Wednesday morning.
Police officials said a truck carrying timber was on its way from Vehari to Lahore on the Lahore-Multan National Highway.
Ahmed Ali, a bystander who witnessed the accident, said that the truck was trying to overtake another truck from the wrong side near village 519-EB. It approached a blind turn near Aada Zaheer Nagar when its tie-rod failed and it fell on top of a passenger van coming from the opposite direction.
There were 30 passengers in the van, including women and children, who were crushed by the truck. The bystanders rushed to their aid and informed local authorities.
They said Ijaz Sultan Bandesha, a local politician, was the first to reach the scene and they had to wait for four hours before the police or Rescue-1122 officials arrived to help the trapped passengers. More than 100 local residents worked for almost four hours to pull the passengers from under the truck.
Rescue-1122 officials told The Express Tribune that 11 people had died on the spot and three other passengers succumbed to their injuries at Burewala tehsil headquarters hospital.
Vehari District Police Officer Sadiq Ali Dogar arrived at the scene to monitor the situation and ordered disciplinary action against the officials whose negligence had led to the loss of lives.
Rescue-1122 officials said that they took 19 people to hospitals and three of them died there.
Vehari Traffic DSP Raja Shahid told The Express Tribune that they had taken the truck into custody and recorded the witnesses’ statements. He said the truck driver had fled the scene and they were looking for him.
The death toll includes three children and five women from two families. The only passenger who remained unscathed in the horrific incident was four-year-old Hafsa.
Doctors at the Burewala THQ hospital told The Express Tribune that 11 passengers among the 16 hospitalised were in a critical condition. They said they had been referred to the Vehari district headquarters hospital and the Nishtar Hospital in Multan.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 22nd, 2014.
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