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Nawabshah in Pakistan Alamy Stock Photo

Death toll rises to 28 from Pakistan train derailment

More than 50 people were injured in the accident.

LAST UPDATE | 6 Aug 2023

AT LEAST 28 people have been killed and dozens injured after an express train derailed in southern Pakistan.

“This is quite a big accident,” railway minister Khawaja Saad Rafique told reporters.

“There can be two reasons: first that it was a mechanical fault, or the fault was created – it might be a sabotage. We will investigate it.”

The derailment of the Hazara Express happened near Sahara railway station close to Nawabshah city in the southern Sindh province.

“Eight coaches have derailed,” Mohsin Syal, a railway official, told local HUM News.

Accidents and derailments occur frequently on Pakistan’s antiquated railway system, which has nearly 7,500 kilometres (4,600 miles) of track and carries more than 80 million passengers a year.

Sharjeel Memon, spokesman for the Sindh provincial government, told reporters 19 people had been confirmed dead and more than 50 injured.

There were chaotic scenes at the Nawabshah Trauma Centre as ambulances and private cars ferried the injured for treatment.

One man leapt from the back of an ambulance clutching a child, his clothes soaked in blood, while a woman moaned in pain as she was carried in on a stretcher.

“We don’t know what happened, we were just sitting inside,” said one dazed woman.

At the accident site outside Nawabshah, dozens of cars, tractors, rickshaws and motorcycles could be seen parked on a road that runs alongside the track.

Volunteers were wading through a canal that separates the road from the railway line to help, and lifting the injured to get them assistance.

Some passenger compartments were upright but off the tracks, while others lay on their side, mangled steel from the undercarriage twisted and buckled.

Relief train

Senior police official Younis Chandio told Geo News from the site that some passengers remained trapped in one carriage.

Ijaz Shah, a provincial railway official, told AFP that a relief train had been dispatched to the site.

The Hazara Express is a daily passenger train that leaves the port city of Karachi in the south and takes around 33 hours to reach Havelian in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, some 1,600 kilometres north.

In June 2021 two trains collided near Daharki in Sindh, killing at least 65 people and injuring about 150 others.

In that accident, an express derailed onto the opposite track, and a second passenger train crashed into the wreckage roughly a minute later.

At least 75 passengers burnt to death in a fire aboard the Tezgam express train in October 2019, while a two-train collision at Ghotki killed more than 100 people in 2005.

© AFP 2023

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    Mute Gerry Ivie
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    May 9th 2014, 8:40 PM

    Meanwhile, the fatcat bond holders were compensated fully. Didn’t happen though when ordinary working men and women were persuaded by Mary O Rourke to beg borrow or steal to buy shares in Eircom…..

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    Mute Michael G O'Reilly
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    May 9th 2014, 10:31 PM

    You may be sure that the majority of the managers and higher level workers lost out on nothing . As usual Mulvey, an ex trade union leader, is a disgrace !

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    Mute Philip
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    May 9th 2014, 8:46 PM

    Bloody whingers they were happy when the bank was doing well.
    They were happy when the bonuses were coming in.
    Lucky to be getting anything should only be statutory and be glad of it.

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    Mute Patrick O'Rourke
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    May 9th 2014, 8:45 PM

    Frankly, they suffer because they are playing golf with the wrong crowd

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    Mute scooter mcgavin
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    May 9th 2014, 8:47 PM

    My heart bleeds

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    Mute gerbreen
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    May 9th 2014, 9:40 PM

    No bank in receipt of state funds should have been allowed to offer anything beyond statutory redundancy. Maybe not a reflection on the person but the company was dead. I await with interest to see where John Moran pops up now he has allowed recapitalisation of banks.

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    Mute Rehabmeerkat
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    May 9th 2014, 10:25 PM

    Staff who resigned not entitled to redundancy… Shock Horror

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    Mute Kevin Brady
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    May 9th 2014, 8:52 PM

    my dad got his mortgage from anglo when it was a fella in an office.he got €4000 to build the house in dublin, and in the height the house was worth €650,000. in walkinstown. mental stuff

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    Mute Chewey Bacca
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    May 9th 2014, 9:46 PM

    But he built it in the rare old times yeah ?

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    Mute Jonny Martin
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    May 9th 2014, 10:08 PM

    Anglo Irish Bank never offered residential mortgages

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    Mute Kevin Brady
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    May 9th 2014, 10:18 PM

    rare old times is right mate. even in walkintown… the house is big and had an extension with utility room and jax. it really makes ye remember how crazy it all was

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    Mute Kate Foley
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    May 10th 2014, 2:19 AM

    Maybe I’m Missing something, but if you leave a job for a better offer, even if the company you work for is in trouble, you are not entitled to any redundancy. How is this even an issue for reporting in the media????

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    Mute Andrew Potts
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    May 9th 2014, 10:26 PM

    I have no sympathy for Anglo staff they did a crap job building a busted bank, paid themselves well and the country was left holding a bill for their collective stupidity. Just suck it up the same as contractors who never got paid or small business that went bust. I shared a lift with a stupid girl who had worked for Anglo and she could see no connection with the loss of services in society and her former company’s bad business decisions

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    Mute Deirdre Whelehan
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    May 9th 2014, 10:05 PM

    Comments closed for Seanie et pals court case-but open for actual current staff working 9-5 same as u-shame on you Journal

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    Mute Owen Kennedy
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    May 9th 2014, 9:47 PM

    Good. Finally a little bit of justice. It appears the country is slowly releasing its head from its anoos

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    Mute Kate Foley
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    May 10th 2014, 2:21 AM

    Maybe I’m Missing something, but if you leave a job for a better offer, especially if the company you work for is in trouble, you’re not entitled to reduntancy!!!!!!

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    Mute Jeffrey McMahon
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    May 10th 2014, 12:24 AM

    “The reason for this, according to the IBOA, is because creditors of the IBRC could legally pursue payments made to those who left early.”

    Excellent. They can go after Fitzpatrick then, biggest payout in one person right there.

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    Mute mark o leary
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    May 9th 2014, 10:28 PM

    The lapdogs for the leprechauns who ruined the country,let them starve,call it the Anglo famine.

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