MULTAN, March 5: The driver and fireman of a goods train which ran into a sand hump at Gelaywal station in Lodhran on Sunday and derailed subsequently have been suspended.

The train was coming from Kundian and its driver and fireman were changed at Mahmoodkot in Muzaffargarh . At Gelaywal, it did not halt and smashed the hump and partially damaged a nearby house where four members of a family were sleeping.

According to railway sources, `overworked’ driver Siraj Din had fallen asleep and could not know when the train was diverted to the loop line. When he woke up and tried to apply emergency brakes, it was too. The fireman has been identified as Naveed. Divisional engineer Rizwanul Haq Hashmi and divisional mechanical engineer Kashif Farooq reached the spot. A number of trains got late due to closure of the line. — Correspondent