QUETTA, July 21: Seventeen people were killed and 34 injured when a Gwadar-bound coach overturned on the Coastal Highway, some 550km from here, on Monday.

Police sources said the coach had left Karachi for Gwadar at around 5am. When the vehicle reached near Kund Mallier, some 120km from Uthal, it went out of the driver’s control due to overspeeding and overturned.

The driver and 15 passengers were killed on the spot and 35 others injured. One of the injured later died in a hospital.

Soon after the accident, people of the area and coast guards rushed to the spot and transferred the victims to hospitals in Uthal, Bela and Hub. Five of them were later shifted to Karachi owing their serious condition.

Fourteen of the deceased were identified as Shahzad, Bilal, Imam Bakhsh, Dad Mohammad, Noor Mohammad, Miro Khan, Mohammad Arif, Karim Bakhsh, driver; Mohammad Akhtar, Dad Mohammad, son of Ghulam Rasool, Dur Bibi, Hameeda, Rashida and Aam Bibi.

Our Staff Reporter adds from Karachi: Nine of the injured as well as 17 bodies were brought to Karachi by night, Edhi Foundation said.

The injured were taken to Civil Hospital where they were Identified as Amanat Rasool, Asif, Asghar Hussain, Zahid Issa, Tariq Bakhsh, Naved Ahmed, Amir Rafiq, Allah Dad, and Qayyum Hameed.

Rizwan Edhi, an official of the Foundation, told Dawn that three of the bodies, belonging to Mawachh Goth, were handed over to the families concerned at the village. Four bodies, he said, were shifted to the Edhi Centre in Moosa Lane.

The relatives of the victims complained that the coach operators had issued three tickets in the name of one person, creating problems in identifying the passengers.