Bus crashes in Pakistan, killing 33 people and injuring 40

A speeding bus carrying mostly laborers traveling home for a major Muslim holiday rammed into a container truck on a busy highway in central Pakistan on Monday, killing at least 33 people and injuring 40, police and rescue officials said.

The bus had left the city of Sialkot and was traveling on Taunsa Road; its destination was the city of Dera Ghazi Khan in eastern Punjab province, said senior police officer Hassan Javed. The exact cause of the accident is still under investigation, he said.

Rescuers transported the dead and injured to a nearby hospital. According to Sher Khan who was in charge of the rescue team at the site, some of the injured were in critical condition. He said the bus driver was among the 33 killed in the accident.

Khan said the passengers were traveling to their home district of Rajanpur to celebrate the upcoming Eid al-Adha feast.

TV footage and photos circulating on social media showed rescuers trying to pull out bodies from the badly mangled bus. In one image, some of the injured are seen sitting near the bus, waiting for medical help.

Pakistan's Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry expressed his condolences on Twitter and advised public transport drivers to be more careful of the lives of the people they have been entrusted with.

"When will we as a nation realize that the violation of traffic rules is fatal," he said.

The investigation into the cause of the accident was still underway but initial findings suggested the bus was speeding on a damaged road, Khan said.
Bad roads, poorly maintained vehicles and substandard traffic safety regime cause numerous accidents in Pakistan every year, leading to thousands of deaths, according to government statistics.