Web Desk (LTN NEWS): Officials say that at least 20 people died and six were hurt when a passenger bus and an oil tanker crashed early Tuesday morning on the Multan-Sukkur Motorway (M-5).
In a statement, Multan Deputy Commissioner Tahir Wattoo confirmed the accident and said that the bus was going from Lahore to Karachi and hit the oil tanker from behind at the Jalalpur Peerwala interchange on the motorway.
The statement also said that after the crash, a fire broke out and 20 people died on the spot.
In a tweet sent later, Multan Commissioner Amir Khattak also confirmed the news. He said that the accident happened at about 4 a.m.
But a statement from the provincial monitoring center for Rescue 1122 in Lahore said that the accident happened at 2:20 am.
The commissioner showed pictures of the accident site that showed how the bus and oil tanker were burned up.
A spokesperson for the highway police told that the tanker was carrying thousands of liters of gasoline. He also said that it seemed like the bus driver fell asleep, which led to the accident.
The medical superintendent at Nishtar Hospital in Multan, Dr. Amjad Chandio, told that four of the injured were taken to the hospital’s burns unit at first and that the hospital’s mortuary was also making plans for the 20 dead bodies.
Later, DC Wattoo released another statement saying that DNA testing was being done to figure out who the dead person was.
Punjab CM takes notice
Parvez Elahi, who is the Chief Minister of Punjab, asked the Multan commissioner for a report on what happened.
In a statement from the office of the Chief Minister, he was quoted as saying that the whole thing should be looked into and the people responsible should be found.
The CM said he was sad about the people who died in the accident and sent his condolences to their families.
The statement said that he also told the right people to make sure that those who were hurt got the best medical care possible
PM said a prayer for people who died in accidents in a tweet
Also, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was saddened by what happened and said a prayer for the people who died and their families.
“I’m sad that the accident took the lives of 20 good people.”My prayers are with the families of the dead,” he wrote on Twitter.
