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| July 15, 2005 | Friday | Jumadi-us-Sani 7, 1426 |
Relatives endure agony on second day
GHOTKI, July 14: Relatives desperately sought news of their loved ones on the second day as medical workers struggled to identify mangled corpses of around 150 people died in Pakistan’s first triple-train crash. Stations across the country have been thronged with people frantically searching victims’ lists posted by the authorities after the pile-up on Wednesday morning.
Thousands of others travelling in buses, trains and trucks flocked to hospitals near the crash site where for some, severed body parts held the answer they had been dreading.
“I can recognize his feet and hands,” said sobbing Allah Ditta, who came to a Ghotki hospital from Punjab town of Bhawalpur to search for his missing brother.
Officials said they were trying to identify nearly 100 unclaimed bodies which lay shrouded by white sheets in the courtyard of the small government hospital nearly 36 hours after the collision.
Ice-blocks and power fans were being used to cool the bodies because of the lack of a mortuary.
“We have so far handed over 37 bodies to their relatives but 96 bodies are still lying at the hospital as their identification has not yet been established,” railway police officer Shafi Mohammad Mughal said.
“We are trying our best to find the family members so they can be laid to rest,” he said.
“Most of the unclaimed bodies do not have faces and heads and we have gathered hands, feet and torsos,” said Amanullah, a volunteer from the Edhi Welfare Trust.
The government has also set up toll-free telephone hotlines and crisis centres at railway stations following the crash.
But it was no consolation for some.
“My two sons were on the Karachi express, but I am completely in the dark,” said Lutafullah Khan, 58, outside the Lahore station.
“I will never smile again until I hear good news about my boys”.—AFP
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