Not less than 19 passengers have been killed and over 40 injured after a train derailed on Sunday in Pakistan.
Taking off from Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, eight train cars went off the tracks of the passenger train near a town in the southern province of Sindh, according to Hum News, local media.
Officials say several passengers are feared to be trapped inside the train which had over 1000 passengers on board.
Police and rescue teams are said to be at the site of the accident while train operations have been suspended.
Rescue teams are moving the injured to seek medical attention in a hospital while army personnel have also been dispatched to the site of the accident to help with rescue and relief activities.
Khawaja Saad Rafique, Pakistan’s minister for railways and aviation, said an emergency has been imposed in hospitals nearby and ordered an investigation into the cause of the derailment.
The train derailment brings back to the fore concerns regarding railway safety in Pakistan.
In January, at least 15 people were injured when a bomb blast rocked a passenger train in the south-western Pakistani province of Balochistan.
In June 2021, at least 63 people died when a train hurtling through farmland derailed and collided with another passenger service in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province. The accident was considered to be one of the world’s deadliest train fatalities.