KARACHI: A collision between two trains on Tuesday killed at least one person near Ran Pathani area of Sindh, officials said.
The accident between a freight train and the Lahore-bound Business Express departing from Karachi killed the driver of the passenger train, confirmed the Divisional Commercial Officer (DCO) of the Railways department.
Sources said that the Business Express had collided with a stationary cargo train causing several bogies of the Business Express train to derail.
Several people were said to have been injured in the accident, although the exact number was yet to be verified.
Emergency teams were dispatched from nearby Karachi, Hyderabad and Thatta areas, but were facing difficulties in reaching the remote location.
Railway services between Karachi and the rest of the country were suspended after the accident.
Relatives of the train’s passengers flocked the Karachi Cantonment Railway Station to inquire about the well-being of their loved ones. The Business Express train was carrying 270 passengers at the time of accident.
Railway accidents are common in Pakistan, which are mostly blamed on poor maintenance and human error.
Pakistan suffered one of its worst train disasters in more than a decade in 2005 when three trains ploughed into each other in Sindh province, killing around 150 people.
In July 2013, 14 members of an extended family were killed when a speeding train hit a motorcycle rickshaw at an unmanned level-crossing near Khanpur village near Gujranwala.
More than 350 people were killed in a train crash in 1990, the worst train accident ever in the country.
