At least seven people died and 42 sustained injuries in a head-on collision between two passenger coaches on the Mehran Highway near Nawabshah in Sindh on Sunday, officials said.

Benazirabad Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIGP) Mohammad Younis Chandio confirmed the death toll to Dawn.com. The injured, he said, were being treated at the People’s University of Medical and Health Sciences.

According to the DIGP, the accident took place on Daur Bandhi Road a little after 4am today when two passenger buses — coming from Karachi and Peshawar — collided with each other.

Chandio said the collision occurred because of the high speed of the vehicles.

He added that the Mehran Highway was closed for traffic after the accident and vehicles were diverted towards the National Highway.

Later in the evening, a first information report was registered at Daur police station on the complaint of Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) Peeral Dahiri under sections 109 (abetment), 279 (rash driving or riding on a public way), 320 (punishment for qatl-i-khata by rash or negligent driving), 337G (punishment for hurt by rash or negligent driving) and 427 (mischief causing damage amounting to Rs50) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The ASI said he was patrolling the Mehran Highway with his fellow policemen when he saw two coaches coming from the south and north with both their drivers driving in a reckless manner.

ASI Dahiri said he witnessed the buses crashing into each other which resulted in the driver of the vehicle coming from the north dying on the spot.

The police official lodged the complaint against the bosses of the two drivers, saying they had instructed their employees to take shortcuts on the Mehran Highway to save fuel in contravention of their route permits.

Earlier this month, at least 13 people, including five women, were killed and 31 others injured when a bus veered off the Islamabad-Lahore Motorway and overturned near Kallar Kahar.

The accident, police had said, occurred after the driver lost control over the steering apparently due to a “brake failure”.

In April, nine people were killed when a truck collided head-on with a mini-van near the Keenjhar Lake in Sindh’s Thatta district.

In February, at least 13 people were killed while more than 20 were injured when a speeding jeep rammed into two other vehicles on the Multan-Sukkur Motorway (M-5).