Quetta: At least 20 people were killed and over 100 injured when four bogies of the Jaffar Express derailed in Ab-i-Gum area of the Bolan district Tuesday. The dead include the driver of the train and his assistant.
The train derailed due to a failure of the brakes of the train while it was en route Rawalpindi from Quetta.“The brakes of the train failed,”Akbar Hussain Durrani, home secretary of Baluchistan, told Media.
DIG Railway confirmed that 20 people had died and over 100 others wounded in the mishap. Meanwhile Federal Minister for Railways Khawaja Saad Rafique said that 12 people have died in the fatal accident.
The victims were shifted to hospitals in Quetta where an emergency has been declared in all hospitals.
A quick reaction force of FC Balochistan along with ambulances reached at site of train accident for rescue operation, according to a statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR).
Two MI-17 helicopters of Pakistan Army have also flown from Quetta for the rescue operation, the statement added.
Earlier this month, three passengers of Jaffar Express were killed and 11 others were injured in a bomb blast on a railway track near Dasht area in Mastung district.
Those killed and injured were railway employees travelling in the first bogey of Jaffar Express going to Rawalpindi from Quetta. The banned United Baloch Army (UBA) had claimed responsibility for the blast.
