A head-on collision between a passenger bus and a truck on a highway in southern Pakistan killed 58 people. The collision ignited a fuel fire and a rescuer later described how he carried out a survivor, a four-year-old girl, from the burning bus.
The bus, with about 70 people, had left Swat Valley and was en route to the southern port city of Karachi when it collided head-on with the truck near Khairpur district in Sindh province, said police official Ghulam Jhokhio.
He said the bus quickly caught fire after its fuel tank exploded.
The fatalities included 21 women and 19 children, all below the age of 14, said local hospital official Jafar Soomro and warned the death toll was likely to rise. Fifteen people were injured and in hospital, several of them in critical condition, he said.
But later, deputy chief of highway police, A.D. Khawaja, said the bus was speeding on a part of the highway under construction and that the driver's carelessness caused the accident.
A Sindh provincial minister, Siraj Durrrani, decried the tragedy and said the government badly needs to improve the infrastructure to avoid such horrific accidents.
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