Islamabad: At least 24 people, most of them students, were killed on Wednesday near Nawabshah when a school van first collided with another passenger van and then with a heavy truck head on.
As many as 21 girls and boys— aged between six and 16 years –, their two female teachers and the van driver were killed on the spot.
The ill-fated van was bringing the students of private Bright Future School of the nearby Daulatpur town back from Nawabshah, around 270 kilometres north of Karachi in Sindh province. There were around 40 people on board.
Doctor Hashim Langa, chief of the government-run Civil Hospital in Nawabshah, said the hospital had received 21 dead bodies out of which 19 were children.
Apart from the dead, some 15 to 20 injured were also brought to the hospital, seven of whom were in intensive care and neurological wards, he added.
Police said that they were trying to locate the driver of the loaded dump-truck who had fled the scene. Senior police officer Asif Ali Pechuho said that the school van had been so badly wrecked that rescue workers had to use tools to extract bodies.
