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At least 74 killed in Pakistan train fire
RAHIM YAR KHAN, Pakistan, Oct 31, 2019 (AFP) – At least 74 people were
killed and dozens injured after cooking gas cylinders exploded on a train
packed with pilgrims in Pakistan on Thursday, some dying after leaping from
carriages to escape the inferno, authorities said.
Television footage showed flames pouring out of three carriages as people
could be heard crying during the incident, in a rural area of central Punjab
province.
Some of the passengers — many of whom were pilgrims travelling to one of
Pakistan’s biggest religious gatherings — had been cooking breakfast when
two of their gas cylinders exploded, Ali Nawaz, a senior Pakistan Railways
official, told AFP.
Many Pakistanis carry food on long train journeys, but gas cylinders are
supposedly banned. Pakistan’s railways minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed later
told reporters that it had been a “mistake” to allow the cylinders on board.
Dozens of people crowded along the tracks staring at the burning
carriages, which had been disconnected from the rest of the train, television
images showed.
Firefighters rushed to the scene near Rahim Yar Khan district. Rescue
workers and soldiers could also be seen, as bodies were carried away covered
in white sheets.
“A cylinder exploded and I don’t know how, fire erupted everywhere,” one
survivor, Muhammad Imran, told AFP from a hospital in Rahim Yar Khan.
“I jumped out of the train to save my life. There was a whole line of
people behind me, they pushed,” he said.
Muhammad Nadeem Zia, a medical superintendent at the hospital in
Liaquatpur, the nearest town, told AFP some of the victims were killed by
head injuries sustained as they leapt from the moving train. He said at least
44 people had been injured.
Those hurt were being rushed to hospitals in the nearby city of Bahawalpur
and elsewhere in Rahim Yar Khan district. Officials said many of the bodies
were charred beyond recognition.
Prime Minister Imran Khan said he was “deeply saddened” by the tragedy and
had ordered an urgent inquiry.
– Religious pilgrimage –
Khan said the train was the Tezgam, one of Pakistan’s oldest and most
popular rail services, which runs between the southern port city of Karachi
to the garrison city of Rawalpindi, neighbouring Islamabad.
It had been diverted to facilitate the religious pilgrims travelling to
Lahore.
Passengers were travelling to attend the annual Tablighi Ijtema, one of
Pakistan’s biggest religious gatherings, which each year sees up to 400,000
people descend on a tented village outside Lahore for several days to sleep,
pray and eat together.
The majority of those killed were pilgrims from southern Sindh province,
Nawaz said.
The Tablighi Ijtema, which begins Thursday and concludes on Sunday, was
founded by religious scholars more than five decades ago and focuses
exclusively on preaching Islam.
It usually sees hundreds of camps and sub-camps set up on the dusty site
outside Lahore to accommodate people from across Pakistan, giving the
gathering a festival feel.
Stalls sell cooked food, raw chicken and meat, vegetables and fruit, and
even electrical appliances and batteries for mobile phones at a subsidised
rate.
Railways minister Ahmed said it had been “tradition” for authorities to
allow people travelling to the festival to board trains carrying cooking
cylinders.
“I admit our mistake… this will not happen in the future,” he told
journalists in televised comments from the nearby city of Multan.
“A tragedy that could have been avoided but ever since I can recall while
travelling by train no baggage check or restrictions enforced,” human rights
minister Shireen Mazari tweeted.
– ‘Could have been avoided’ –
Nawaz said two of the carriages were economy coaches, while one was
business class, and that up to 88 passengers can fit into each.
Train accidents are common in Pakistan, where the railways have seen
decades of decline due to corruption, mismanagement and lack of investment.
In July, at least 23 people were killed in the same district when a
passenger train coming from the eastern city of Lahore rammed into a goods
train that had stopped at a crossing.
Accidents often happen at unmanned crossings, which frequently lack
barriers and sometimes signals.
BSS/AFP/SSS/1751 hrs