MUZAFFARABAD: Eleven people, three of them under 10 years of age, died and 14 others were injured after a passenger coach fell hundreds of feet down from a dilapidated portion of the Muzaffarabad-Kohala road onto the bank of the Jhelum River during the small hours of Saturday morning, officials said.
The ill-fated Chakothi-bound vehicle, which had started its journey from Rawalpindi, met with the accident long before its destination near Zaminabad village at about 2.30am where the road has dipped beneath its level due to the alleged erosion by River Jhelum, they said.
From Kohala to Chakothi, the National Highway Authority (NHA) is manning this important artery.
Mohammad Qadeer, a junior police official posted at the nearest Chattar Klass Police Station, told Dawn that they came to know about the accident from Rescue 15 in Muzaffarabad after someone alerted them on hearing loud noise from the accident site.
Preliminary probe finds department concerned failed to ensure safeguards on road
“We rushed the entire staff of the police station as well as Kohala police post to carry out the rescue operation,” he said.
Superintendent of Police Special Branch Syed Arshad Naqvi told Dawn that five persons died on the spot while three others lost their lives before they could reach any hospital.
The rest, including an infant, were evacuated to two main hospitals in Muzaffarabad where three succumbed to their injuries, he added.
He identified the deceased as Mohammad Jamil Rabbani (driver), 35; Haleema, 9; Rohan Rashid, 2; Rafeena Bibi, 28; Najaf Fatima, 9; Hamza, 30; Zubair Akbar, 32; Ehsan, 30; Mohammad Saleem, 45; Fatima, 12; and Mehran Ashraf, 18.
Senior Superintendent of Police Syed Riaz Haider Bukhari said that during his visit to the accident site he had noticed that proper obstacles along with fluorescent reflectors had not been placed around the fragile portion of the road, notwithstanding the threat it posed to the lives of motorists.
Quoting some survivors, the SSP said that on seeing the light of a vehicle from the opposite direction, the driver kept his vehicle towards his own [left] side and as he drove over the sinking portion of road he lost balance of the vehicle and it fell down.
Mr Bukhari said that a two-member team, he had constituted to dig into the cause of the accident, had reported that “evidently it was a glaring mistake by the authority looking after the road”.
In their separate tweets, AJK President Sardar Masood Khan and Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider expressed shock and grief over the loss of lives in the road accident and prayed for the deliverance of the departed souls and early recovery of the survivors.
Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2021
