According to government sources, at least 19 people were killed and others were injured when an express train derailed in southern Pakistan on Sunday.
Accidents and derailments are common on the country’s ancient railway system, which has approximately 7,500 kilometers (4,600 miles) of track and transports over 80 million passengers every year.
“This is quite a big accident,” railway minister Khawaja Saad Rafique told reporters.
“There can be two reasons: first that it was a mechanical fault, or the fault was created — it might be a sabotage. We will investigate it.”
The derailment of the Hazara Express happened near Sahara railway station close to Nawabshah city in the southern Sindh province.
“Eight coaches have derailed,” Mohsin Syal, a railway official, told local HUM News.
According to Sharjeel Memon, spokesman for the Sindh province government, 19 persons have been confirmed deceased and more than 50 have been injured.
As ambulances and private automobiles transported the injured to the Nawabshah Trauma Centre, there were chaotic scenes.
One man sprang out of an ambulance clutching a child, his clothes saturated in blood, while a lady wailed in anguish as she was carried in on a stretcher.
“We don’t know what happened, we were just sitting inside,” said one dazed woman.
Several automobiles, tractors, rickshaws, and motorcycles were observed stopped on a road that runs beside the track near the accident site outside Nawabshah.
Volunteers were wading over a canal that separates the road from the railway line to aid, as well as lifting injured people to get them help.
Some passenger compartments were upright but off the rails, while others were on their sides, twisted and buckled steel from the undercarriage.
