Five persons, including two women and a teenaged boy were killed while 45 others injured on Friday when a bus coming from Faisalabad to Fort Abbas rammed into another bus coming from the opposite side on the overhead bridge.
The ill-fated bus breaking the boundary fell on a motorcycle rickshaw on the road below, police sources said. The buses collided on the overhead bridge at about 9.30 am and one of these fell from a 22-ft height on to the road below, crushing to death two women and a teenager of the same family, Sughra Bibi, Shahnaz Bibi and her son Muhammad Ameen of Amirabad area.
Two of the bus passengers, education department clerk Nawazish Ali, resident of Kamalia, and Manzoor Ahmed of chak 38/12-L were also killed on the spot. As many as 45 persons were injured in the accident, ten of them critically. They were rushed to the local hospital while five were referred to the DHQ hospital Sahiwal.
The injured have been identified as Ibrahim and his wife Jaan Bibi, Abid Hussain, Mulazim Hussain, Irshad, Allah Ditta, Javed, Siddiq, Abdul Majeed and Akram, Rafi, Nazakat Ali and Ghulam Sarwar, Javed, Rab Nawaz, Ejaz, bus driver Muhammad Saeed, a one-and-half-year old baby girl Namra and others.
Ambulances of local hospital, Edhi, Al-Farooq and Al-Da'wa rushed the injured to the THQ hospital where the MS declared an emergency and all doctors were summoned on duty, while the medical store owner reportedly gave free medial supplies for the crash victims.
Tehsil Nazim Chaudhry Muhammad Tufail supervised the relief efforts, while representatives of local NGOs and volunteers provided blood for the injured. The bodies of those killed in the trampled rickshaw were removed after great difficulty by policemen and local people.