Investigators search Monday, August 7, the rubble left by the derailment of a train, Sunday in Pakistan, which killed at least 34 people. More than 1,000 people were on board the Hazara Express when the carriages rolled off their tracks near Sahara Railway Station, not far from the town of Nawabshah in the southern province of Sindh. The train linked the port megalopolis of Karachi to Havelian, located 1,600 kilometers further north in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Hospitals in the area declared a state of emergency as they struggled to care for dozens of seriously injured passengers.
Railway Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique said on Sunday that no failures had been reported on the section of line where the accident occurred, but promised a thorough investigation. “There could be two reasons for this accident, a mechanical problem or sabotage,” he added. Some residents, however, pointed out that the line had been affected by monsoon floods that engulfed a third of the country last summer. With most of the rail network elevated, the verges were often the only place for residents to seek shelter during the floods.
Old network
A special crane arrived at the site late Sunday afternoon, and technicians worked all night to try to clear the tracks. “The downward path has been cleared and work continues on the upward path,” said Shahnawaz Mashori, a teacher who volunteered to help.
Accidents and derailments are common on the country’s dilapidated rail network, which has nearly 7,500 kilometers of track and carries more than 80 million passengers a year. The network, which was the pride of the British in colonial times, still has tracks, junctions and bridges dating back more than a hundred and fifty years, even if modernization is underway as part of the gigantic economic corridor China- Pakistan (CPEC).
In June 2021, at least 65 people were killed and 150 injured when two trains collided, one of which had just derailed, in the southern province of Sindh. In October 2019, at least 75 passengers were also burned to death in a fire aboard the Tezgam express in central-eastern Punjab province and in 2005 the collision of two trains in Ghotki, in the province of Sind, had claimed more than 150 lives.