QUETTA/MANSEHRA: At least 15 people, including women and children, were killed and six others injured in road tragedies in Balochistan’s Bolan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Kohistan areas on Tuesday.

Nine of them, including seven women, died when a pickup truck careened into a roadside ditch in Bolan district, while six others, including a woman and her son, were killed when the jeep they were travelling in plunged into a gorge in the Kolai area of KP.

The tragedies came as a grim reminder of the collision between two buses in Nawabshah that left eight people dead and 45 others injured.

Officials said 12 members of a family were going from Sibi to Quetta for Eidul Azha. When their vehicle reached close to the Pinjra Bridge on Bolan Pass, the driver lost control and fell into the ditch near the Bolan River.

Levies and personnel of other law enforcement agencies moved victims to nearby health facilities.

Six people died on the spot while three succumbed to injuries during treatment at the hospital, according to officials. Three other persons with serious injuries have been moved to Civil Hospital in Quetta for treatment.

Levis officials said initial investigations suggested that the accident took place due to speeding and further investigation was underway.

The bodies have been handed over to the heirs after medico-legal formalities.

Six killed in Kolai

In the second accident, six people, including a woman and her son, were killed when the jeep they were travelling in plunged into a gorge in the Kolai area of KP’s Kolai Palas district.

Three people were critically injured in the accident that took place in the early hours of Tuesday.

Rescue officials and locals shifted the victims to the District Headquarters hospital in Pattan where six were pronounced dead on arrival by the doctors, area SHO Jehanzeb Khan told reporters.

The jeep carrying nine people was on its way to the Pattan area of Lower Kohistan from Kolai when the driver lost control at a sharp turn on an unpaved road.

Two children, aged one and eight years have been moved to Ayub Medical Complex Hospital in Abbottabad for treatment. Their condition was stated to be out of danger.

Published in Dawn, June 28th, 2023