Deadly turn: Five dead, 26 injured in road accident

Passenger coach heading to Skardu plunges in a gorge.

MANSEHRA: Five people were killed and 26 others injured when a passenger coach plunged into a roadside gorge in Mansehra on Saturday. An official of the armed forces was also among the deceased.

According to police, the coach was heading to Skardu, Gilgit-Baltistan from Rawalpindi, Punjab. However, when it reached Gandiayan village in Mansehra it developed a mechanical fault and fell in a gorge as a result.

Rescue teams arrived at the site and retrieved the bodies of five passengers who had died on the spot and shifted the 26 injured to King Abdullah Hospital, from where 23 critically injured were referred to Ayub Medical Complex in Abbottabad.

The deceased included Mufti Jafar Hussain Shah, a hawaldar in the Pakistan Army, Abdul Karim, Shakil Ahmed and Nadia Bibi, while the identity of the fifth could not be ascertained.

Federal Minister for Religious Affairs Sardar Muhammad Yousaf later paid a visit to the injured persons. Yousaf directed the hospital staff to ensure free of cost treatment to the injured.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 8^th, 2014.