At least four people were killed and 15 others injured after a speeding passenger bus overturned following a collision with a motorcycle in Pakistan's eastern Punjab province on Tuesday, rescue officials said on Wednesday. The accident occurred near Kala Khatai Road in the Muridke area of Sheikhupura district when the bus lost control after hitting the motorcycle and overturned, a spokesperson for Rescue 1122 said.
Rescue teams rushed to the scene and shifted the injured to a government hospital after providing first aid. Six other injured passengers received treatment at the scene and were discharged, the spokesperson said. On July 3, at least 40 people were killed and eight others injured after a passenger bus plunged into a deep ravine in the Sherani district of Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province.
Assistant to the Balochistan Chief Minister for Political and Media Affairs, Shahid Rind, said that the death toll rose after several of the injured succumbed to their injuries while being transported to hospitals and undergoing treatment.
Deputy Commissioner of the district, Hazrat Wali Kakar, told Xinhua that the accident occurred at the Zhob-Sherani Highway in the Dhana Sar area of Sherani, near the border between Sherani district in Balochistan and Dera Ismail Khan district in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Police and rescue teams from both districts rushed to the site and shifted the bodies and the injured to nearby hospitals, including women and children. According to a rescue official, the accident occurred in difficult mountainous terrain and rescue teams took more than two hours to reach the site.
Meanwhile, at least nine people were killed and 14 others injured after a residential house collapsed during heavy rain on Monday evening in the Kohat district of Pakistan's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, rescue officials said. An official from the Rescue 1122 said late Monday night that torrential rainfall caused the house to cave in the Malgin area of Lachi area of the district, trapping 23 people under the rubble.
Rescue teams from Kohat and the neighbouring Karak district launched an operation and successfully pulled all the victims from the debris and shifted them to a nearby hospital. The deceased included six women and three children, said the official, fearing that the death toll could rise as some of the injured are in critical condition.
The house collapse came as monsoon rains continued to lash several parts of Pakistan, triggering flash floods, damaging infrastructure and disrupting daily life. Earlier on Monday, the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) of the province warned that additional water could be released from dams over the next two days due to rising inflows.