QUETTA/KARACHI, July 12: At least 11 people, six of them women, were killed and 20 others injured when a Karachi-bound passenger coach carrying pilgrims returning from Iran plunged into a ravine near Bela early on Tuesday morning.

“Nine passengers died on the spot,” police sources told Dawn on telephone from Bela. Two other persons died in hospital.

Soon after receiving information about the accident police and officials of the local administration rushed to the place and moved the bodies and the injured to the Bela hospital.

Most of the deaths occurred due to loss of blood and non- availability of oxygen at the Bela hospital, an Edhi Foundation official said in Karachi.

Edhi ambulances from Bela and Uthal shifted the injured to the hospital. Reinforcements were also sent from Karachi and the seriously injured were taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre and Liaquat National Hospital.

Nine bodies were brought to the city at around 3:30pm on Tuesday from Bela about 200 kilometers from Karachi, Edhi sources said.

According to the injured, the bus driver was speeding and passengers had objected to his rash driving several times.

The pilgrims had left Karachi on June 16 for holy sites in Iran, Iraq and Syria. They were not allowed to cross the border into Iraq and they were returning to Karachi after visiting religious places in Iran, family members of the victims told Dawn.

They were residents of North Karachi, Malir, Nazimabad, Gulistan-i-Jauhar and Tando Adam.