At least 19 people, including several Afghans, were killed and 14 others injured on Sunday after the bus they were traveling in plunged into a ravine in southwestern Pakistan.
The bus fell off a 200-foot cliff while trying to turn onto a rain-slicked road near the town of Dhana Sar, in the southwestern province of Baluchistan.
“In the accident, 19 people died and 14 were injured,” a police officer from the Zhob district police headquarters, near Dhana Sar, Ghulam Khan, told Efe.
Most of the 33 passengers aboard the vehicle were students, workers and Afghans returning home, the agent added.
The accident took place around 3:30 a.m. local time Sunday (22:30 GMT Saturday) and as it was a remote and dark area, “the rescue operation continued for five hours,” Khan said.
Although the reason for the accident is still unknown, a first investigation points to excessive speed by the bus and the state of the road, which was slippery due to the rain.
The victims of the incident have been transferred to the nearest hospitals in the cities of Mughul Kot and Zhob, where there are 12 wounded admitted.
Pakistan has one of the highest traffic accident rates in the world due to the poor state of its roads, the deficiencies of the vehicles and the fact that public transport is often overloaded with passengers.
According to data from the Pakistani government, around 30,000 people die annually in traffic accidents in the country.
On June 8, at least 21 people were killed and a 10-year-old girl was injured when a van with 22 passengers plunged down a 100-foot hill in the Qila Saifullah district of Baluchistan province.
In one of the worst road accidents in Pakistan, which occurred in 2017, at least 180 people lost their lives in the explosion of a tanker truck loaded with gasoline in the east of the country.
