"I don't know whether I will be able to forget that tragic scene," Muhammad said, recounting how he saw women, children and men crying for help. He rushed to the scene but before he could reach it, the second train crashed into the first. Sher Muhammad, a 45-year-old farmer was working on his land when he saw a train derail on the tracks some distance away. "I feel as if I am still hearing cries," Mohammad wept, who lost family members in the crash. He woke up to a big jolt and saw other passengers trying to climb out from overturned and derailed coaches. The more critically injured were transported to hospitals with better facilities in Sindh and also Punjab province, while those more stable were being treated in Ghotki hospital, said Usman Abdullah, who also confirmed the 63 fatalities.Īta Mohammad, a passenger, said he was asleep on the Millat Express when it derailed.
Aijaz Ahmed, the driver of Sir Syed Express, said he braked when he saw the disabled train but did not have time to avoid the collision.
It was unclear exactly what caused the derailment. More than 100 passengers were injured, he said.Īrmy engineers and soldiers dispatched from a nearby military base assisted in the rescue and heavy machinery arrived in Ghotki hours later, to cut open some train cars. Shafiq Ahmed Mahisar, commissioner in Sukkar district, said 12 more bodies were retrieved after the overnight efforts. Bodies of passengers killed in the crash were taken to their hometowns for burial. Rescue work continued throughout the day Monday, overnight and into Tuesday. As passengers scrambled to get out, another passenger train, the Sir Syed Express, crashed into the derailed coaches. Most of the passengers - there were about 1,100 on both trains - were asleep when the Millat Express, traveling between the southern port city of Karachi to Sargodha in eastern Punjab province, derailed and many of its cars overturned. The collision took place on a dilapidated railway track in Ghotki, a district in the southern Sindh province, when an express train barreled into another that had derailed minutes earlier before dawn on Monday.