20 die in bus-oil tanker crash in Pakistan
Rescue workers shift a body of a victim, who was killed after a passenger bus and an oil tanker collided.
A speeding bus collided with an oil tanker in Pakistan, killing 20 people in a violent collisionovernight, police and rescue officials said on Tuesday.
"The three buses were competing. One of them struck a tanker carrying crude oil "Imran Shaukat, a police official, described the incident on a highway near Multan, Pakistan's capital, to Reuters.
The tanker and the bus were both destroyed by fire that was started by the collision, he claimed. He claimed that it was impossible to identify the oil tanker and ascertain the firm it belonged to.
The driver of the tanker allegedly fled the scene, according to a highway police official.
The bus, according to representatives of a government-run rescue organisation, was headed for Karachi, a port city in the south. The Daewoo bus firm was the operator, according to the rescue agency, and at least 20 people died, some of them were fully burned.
Daewoo's Lahore office employee who answered the phone acknowledged that the company's bus was involved in the accidentand that the driver was among those killed. Senior company representatives were unavailable for comment.
A rescue agency representative told Dunya TV that six people made it out alive.
He added that the most of the passengers were killed by the fire while they were asleep and that it was burning when they arrived.
Speeding and inadequate road infrastructure are the main causes of the deadly traffic accidents that frequently occur in Pakistan. Over a hundred people perished in the area in 2017 when an oil tanker flipped and caught fire.
(With inputs from agencies)