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Monday 26 June 2017

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Over 150 dead as overturned fuel truck explodes in Pakistan

Associated Press of horror in Pakistan’s Pun-
By IRAM ASIM jab province.
BAHAWALPUR, Pakistan When the flames subsided,
(AP) — Alerted by an he said, “we saw bodies
announcement over a everywhere. So many were
mosque’s loudspeaker that just skeletons. The people
an overturned tanker truck who were alive were in re-
had sprung a leak, scores ally bad shape.”
of villagers raced to the About 30 motorcycles that
scene with fuel containers villagers had used to rush to
Sunday to gather the oil. the site of the highway ac-
Then the wreck exploded, cident lay charred nearby
engulfing people in flames along with cars, witnesses
as they screamed in terror. said. Local news channels
At least 153 men, women showed black smoke bil-
and children were killed, lowing skyward and army
with dozens more in critical helicopters taking away
condition, hospital and res- the injured.
cue officials said. As victims cried out for
“I have never seen any- help, residents wandered
thing like it in my life. Victims through the area, looking Pakistan army soldiers stands guard while rescue workers examine the site of an oil tanker explo-
trapped in the fireball. They for loved ones. sion at a highway near Bahawalpur, Pakistan, Sunday, June 25, 2017.
were screaming for help,” Zulkha Bibi searched for her Associated Press
said Abdul Malik, a police two sons. Where are they? Are they me,” she pleaded. commissioner of Baha-
officer who was among the “Someone should tell me alive or are they no longer Many of the dead were walpur.
first to arrive on the scene about my beloved sons. in this world? Please tell burned beyond recogni- Highway police moved
tion, said Dr. Mohammad quickly to redirect traf-
Baqar, a senior rescue fic but couldn’t stop the
official in the area. They scores of villagers, spokes-
will have to be identified man Imran Shah told a lo-
through DNA. cal TV channel.
The disaster came on the When the fire erupted, the
eve of the Muslim holiday same mosque loudspeaker
of Eid al-Fitr, which marks called on the remaining vil-
the end of the fasting lagers to help put it out.
month of Ramadan. While Mohammed Salim said
Saudi Arabia and most he ran toward the smoke
other Muslim countries cel- with buckets of water and
ebrated the holiday Sun-
day, Pakistanis will mark it sand, but the heat was too
on Monday. intense for him to reach the
The fuel truck was traveling victims.
from the southern port city “I could hear people
of Karachi to Lahore, the screaming, but I couldn’t
Punjab provincial capital, get to them,” he said.
when the driver lost control Dr. Javed Iqbal at Baha-
and crashed on a highway walpur’s Victoria Hospital
outside Bahawalpur. said most of the patients
A loudspeaker atop a suffered burns to upward of
mosque alerted villagers to 80 percent of their bodies.
the leaking fuel, and many Many were evacuated by
rushed to the scene with plane or helicopter to hos-
fuel containers, said Rana pitals in the Punjab cities of
Mohammad Salim, deputy Lahore and Multan.q