KARACHI - At least 17 people were killed when a truck crashed into a parked bus in Matiari district Monday, in the latest fatal collision on the country’s notoriously dangerous roads. The long haul truck slammed into the back of the bus, which was stopped on the side of the highway with a flat tyre near the southern city of Hyderabad. Several passengers were on the side of the road during the incident as the driver sought help to change the tyre, while others were waiting inside the vehicle. “The women and children still in the bus suffered the brunt of the collision,” local police officer Zahid Ali Shah told AFP. Eight people were injured in the collision. The deceased include women and children, the police official added.
Local people, police and rescue teams shifted the bodies and injured to nearby hospitals.
“It seems to be an incident of reckless driving,” Shah said, adding the truck driver fled the scene of the crash.
The ill-fated bus was carrying wedding-goers, Shah said, adding that an investigation has been launched into the accident. According to official data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, around 9,000 road accidents are reported every year since 2011 in the country, killing more than 4,500 people on average annually.
Traffic police officials said 90 percent of the accidents in Pakistan are caused by human errors.
Pakistan has one of the world’s worst records for fatal traffic accidents, many of them blamed on poor roads, badly maintained vehicles and reckless driving.
