Pakistan Rail Crash Kills 14, Injures 44
At least 14 people were killed and 44 injured, 13 seriously, when a passenger train rammed into the back of a freight train in southern Pakistan Sunday, an army spokesman said.
He said 1,000 troops had been sent to the crash site in Reti, 290 miles northeast of Karachi, to help cut passengers from the wreckage of the Chenab Express from Karachi to Peshawar.
Ambulance officials said the toll could rise.
“There are numerous bodies inside the twisted wreckage,” the spokesman said.
He said army engineers had recovered 14 bodies from the first three derailed cars of the express, which ran into the back of a freight train loaded with wheat at Reti in the southern province of Sind.
Police said assistant station master Abdul Rahim fled after the accident, which blocked one of the two main lines between Karachi and the northwestern city of Peshawar.
The government ordered an inquiry after initial reports indicated that the accident may have been caused by a signaling error.
More than 360 people were killed in two previous railway accidents in the same area.
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