ON 25th June, an oil tanker was on its way from Karachi to Lahore when it turned upside down due to overspeeding and burst into flames on the National Highway, near Ahmedpur, Shariqa District, Bahawalpur, resulting in the death of 152 people and at least 100 others were severely injured.
Why did the people rush to collect the dangerous fuel? Why didn’t they obey the local police and tanker driver? Why did they become so greedy just to get some free petrol?
This reminded me of super floods 2010 when many internally displaced people surrounded a helicopter carrying food supplies for them. It nearly crashed and then flew off immediately so as to escape from the people.
Ali Gul Leghari
Johi, District Dadu
(2)
FAMILY members and friends of Bahawalpur tragedy victims buried their loved ones with heavy hearts. Around 160 were killed and at least 100 others were injured in the incident.
This incident has left a lot of questions for us as individuals and as a nation too. Discussions went on on the electronic media as to who was responsible for this fatal incident.
According to the National Highway Authority (NHA), the tanker was found non-compliant (overloaded), making the tank trailer unstable. The vehicle also violated the rules of OGRA and ADR. If this is true, then why was the tanker not grounded by the transport company? And how did it reached there travelling almost 818 km from Kemari to Ahmadpur East? A small negligence or inefficiency caused major incident.
Last but not the least, responsibility also lies on the shoulders of the victims who lost their lives just for nothing. We as a nation should learn from this.
Asad ullah
Gwadar
Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2017
