A deadly road accident between an oil tanker and passenger coach late Saturday night left at least 57 dead with scores wounded as both vehicles caught fire.
“We have received more than 57 dead bodies but the death toll may rise as most of them are completely burnt and stuck to each other,” Doctor Semi Jamali at Karachi's Jinnah hospital said.
Jamali said the bodies of at least six children were stuck to women who may have been their mothers, adding it was impossible to separate the remains.
“They are beyond recognition, they can only be identified by DNA test,” she said.
The bus was en route to Shikarpur from Karachi on the Super Highway Link Road when an oncoming oil tanker crashed into it head on.
Police sources said that the vehicles caught fire upon colliding, and that passengers sitting atop the bus jumped off to save themselves.
According to Karachi Commissioner Shoaib Siddiqui, the crash was the result of negligence on the part of the oil tanker driver. Due to the presence of petrol, Siddiqui said the flames were difficult to control.
One survivor said that the passenger bus was overcrowded, a common practice amongst local public transport operators in the absence of safety regulations.
Pakistan has an appalling record of fatal traffic accidents due to poor roads, badly maintained vehicles and reckless driving. Crashes killing dozens of people are not uncommon.
Close to 9,000 road accidents are reported to the police every year since 2011, killing over 4,500 people on average, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
In November last year, 58 people died in a bus crash in Karachi owing to the poor condition of roads.
In April, a bus smashed into a tractor-trailer in a high-speed collision in Sindh, killing 42 people, while in March a horrific crash between two buses and a petrol tanker left 35 dead, with many burned alive when the fuel ignited.
The mountainous areas of Kashmir and the north, where drivers career around narrow hairpin bends over deep ravines with scant regard for safety, are particularly prone to accidents.
