At least 16 passengers died while 45 were injured on Saturday in two traffic accidents involving vehicles carrying headed to Sindh’s Sehwan city ahead of the urs of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar.

In one incident, five people were killed and 10 were injured when the van they were travelling in collided with a trailer near Qazi Ahmed town of Sindh’s Shaheed Benazirabad District, and in the other, 11 passengers from Punjab’s Burewala died and 35 other injured in a road accident near Ranipur, Khairpur district.

Fatal road accidents on highways occur frequently in Pakistan, with the main reasons including speeding, hazardous overtaking and disregard for traffic rules.

Qazi Ahmed Station House Officer (SHO) Waseem Mirza confirmed the death toll to Dawn.com, adding that the accident occurred on Amri Road near Qazi Ahmed.

According to SHO Mirza, the van was carrying devotees to Lal Shahbaz Qalandar’s shrine in Jamshoro District’s Sehwan city.

“The speedy van initially hit a donkey cart followed by a major collision with a trailer coming from the opposite side,” the police official said.

He added that initially, rescue teams and police reached the spot and shifted two bodies and the injured to Qazi Ahmed Taluka Hospital.

Some critically injured individuals were referred to the Peoples University of Medical & Health Sciences for Women in Nawabshah, where three were pronounced dead on arrival.

Khairpur accident

Khairpur Deputy Commissioner Ahmed Fawad Shah said a local bus was coming from Burewala when it collided with a rickshaw that was crossing the National Highway near Ranipur. The driver probably tried to save the rickshaw.

He said that 11 passengers died and 35 injured. It is not clear if the rickshaw occupants are among the casualties. The dead and injured were shifted to three different health facilities including Rural Health Centre (RHC) Hingorja and Ranipur besides Gambat Institute of Medical and Sciences (GIMS) Khairpur.

According to SSP Khairpur Tauheed Memon, the bus overturned after colliding with the rickshaw. “All dead and injured come from Burewala and were travelling to Sehwan to attend Qalandar’s urs”, he said. Initially, the injured and dead were shifted to RHC but now they were brought to GIMS Hospital, he added.

“All legal formalities are being completed and then the injured and dead will be shifted to Burewala, Vehari,” he said. He added that the senior superintendent of police and Vehari deputy commissioner were in contact with the Khairpur police and administration.

“We will be providing them transportation and food,” he said. He added that he had visited the spot to oversee the rescue operation. The SSP also said that injured and dead were being identified in hospital for legal formalities.

Qalandar’s Urs will begin on Feb 19 (18th Shabaan). The Sindh government has announced a holiday on Feb 19. Countless number of people converge in Sehwan every year to pay homage to Qalandar, a sufi saint. Usually, the devotees start gathering in Sehwan a couple of days before commencement of urs and leave after a couple of days when urs finishes.

Deadly roads

According to a report from April last year, citing officials, as many as 115 people were killed and 317 injured in a total of 97 traffic accidents on an incomplete section of the Indus Highway between Jamshoro and Sehwan during the last four years.

A day ago, five occupants of a car died and six others in a sports utility vehicle (SUV) were injured when the SUV coming from the wrong side of the Indus Highway rammed into the car near Jamshoro’s Sann town.

Last month, at least one person died and 11 others were injured as a Karachi-bound bus collided with a stationary trailer near Nooriabad on the M-9 Karachi-Hyderabad motorway. Over a week before that, two youths and a child were killed when two motorcycles were hit by speeding vehicles on Indus Highway in Jamshoro.

On January 9, a fatal collision between two cars near Dhabeji on the Karachi-Thatta section of the National Highway claimed four lives — including of a newly-wed man and his mother — and left six injured.