Pakistan: Seven passengers die after bus driver falls asleep

[News_Editor]

Pakistan: Seven passengers die after bus driver falls asleep

2012-04-12 16:31:32 GMT+7 (ICT)

HARIPUR, PAKISTAN (BNO NEWS) -- At least seven people were killed on Wednesday when a passenger bus crashed into a van in northern Pakistan, a local newspaper reported on Thursday. Several others were injured.

The accident occurred when the passenger bus crashed head-on into an oncoming van in the town of Donali in the Haripur district of the Hazara region in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, some 65 kilometers (40 miles) north of the country's capital of Islamabad, reports said.

According to the Express Tribune newspaper, the bus had taken off from the city of Lahore and was traveling toward Mansehra in Mansehra District when the driver of the bus, who was speeding, fell asleep near the Donali Bridge. The bus then crashed into the van, which was headed toward Rawalpindi from Balakot.

At least seven bus passengers were killed in the collision while eight others were injured, the newspaper reported. Emergency teams had to cut through the metal in order to remove the bodies. Among the survivors was a three-year-old girl named Sehrish Bibi, whose parents both died in the crash.

At least three of the wounded were reported to be in a critical condition and were transported to the Ayub Medical Complex in Abbotabad.

The fatal victims were identified as Wali Muhammad; Rehana Bibi and her husband Abdul Sattar; Iqbal Khan from Balakot; Wali Muhammad of Mansehra; Muhammad Aqeel Nawaz and his wife Gulzar Bibi, also from Mansehra and driver of the van Amir Shehzad.

Road accidents are common in Pakistan with more than 5,500 fatalities in 2007, according to the most recent figures released by national police. Many accidents are the result of poor infrastructure and the disregard of traffic laws.

On March 27, fifteen people were killed and 40 others were injured when a speeding passenger bus overturned near Safdarabad in Sheikhupura District of Punjab province, located in eastern Pakistan. The driver of the bus, which was carrying 55 people, had lost control while attempting to make a sharp turn.

And in early February, eleven people were killed when a passenger van went off a road and plunged down a ravine in Sher Bangal, which is located in the Upper Dir district in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. The nine other people on board were injured and taken to a local hospital.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2012-04-12