Rescue and police officials said that at least 36 people, including 12 pilgrims who were attempting to reach Iran, died in two different bus accidents in Pakistan on Sunday.
When a bus crashed into a ravine close to the town of Azad Pattan, on the boundary between Punjab province and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, all 24 occupants perished.
“I have lost three members of my family,” Tara Zafar told AFP after learning of the catastrophe and making her way to the hospital.
Among the deceased were her father, sister, and one-year-old nephew.
“I hoped that at least one of them had survived. It’s doomsday for my family.”
At the scene of the accident, Umar Farooq, a senior government official from the Sudhanoti area, where the bus originated, told AFP, “24 were travelling in the bus and all 24 have died.”
Before authorities arrived, some twenty locals assisted with body recovery.
As stated by 44-year-old retired army soldier Manazir Hussain, “We carried the bodies out of the ravine wrapped in shawls and scarves.”
In a separate incident, 12 men were killed when their bus plunged into a gorge on the Makran Coastal Highway in Balochistan after being stopped from crossing into Iran.
There were no more bodies or injured individuals discovered after the bus was removed from the gorge with the aid of an army crane.
“This is a particularly treacherous tract of road, with many twists and turns. The driver was speeding and the bus fell into a deep ravine,” police official Aslam Bangulzai, who was at the scene, told AFP.
The incident happened in a mountainous region, 500 kilometers from the Iranian border town of Pishin and around 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the closest settlement, Uthal.
Senior government official in the nearby district of Gwadar, Hamood Ur Rehman, said, “The bus was carrying pilgrims on its way to Arbaeen (pilgrimage) but was turned back at the Iran border because their documents had some problems.”
In Pakistan, where safety regulations are brittle, driver training is inadequate, and transportation infrastructure is frequently in disrepair, road accidents with a high death toll are frequent.
The remains of 28 pilgrims who perished in an Iranian bus accident were repatriated to Pakistan on Saturday.
Tuesday night, the bus overturned and caught fire in front of a checkpoint in Yazd province, carrying fifty-one Pakistani pilgrims who were traveling via Iran to attend the Arbaeen commemoration in Iraq, one of the most important occasions in the Shiite calendar, according to Iranian official TV.
