15 killed, 60 injured as bus veers off road in Pakistan's Punjab province

Lahore: A speeding bus carrying a wedding party veered off the road before falling in a ravine in Pakistan's Punjab province, killing at least 15 people and wounding 60 others, authorities said on Monday.

The bus, travelling from Islamabad to Lahore, overturned late on Sunday in the Kallar Kahar Salt Range region, some 240 km from Lahore.

"The bus, before overturning, hit three vehicles coming from the opposite direction and veered off the road," Rescue 1122 official Muhammad Farooq told PTI on Monday.

The bus was carrying people returning from a wedding ceremony.

Rescue 1122 emergency service attributed brake failure as the apparent reason for the accident.

The dead and many injured had to be extracted by cutting the bus' body, Farooq said.

"The injured were shifted to hospitals in twin cities -- Rawalpindi and Islamabad -- where the condition of 11 of them is critical," he said, adding that among the dead, six were women.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif expressed sorrow over the accident. He directed the authorities to provide the best medical facilities to the injured.

Road accidents are common in Pakistan and are caused mainly due to poor roads, badly maintained vehicles and unprofessional driving.

Last month, at least 41 people were killed after a passenger coach fell into a ravine in Balochistan’s Lasbela.

According to World Health Organisation estimates, more than 27,000 people were killed on Pakistan’s roads in 2018.