At least 42 dead, 17 wounded after bus collides with truck in Pakistan

At least 42 people were killed and 17 wounded in southern Pakistan yesterday when a bus travelling to Karachi collided with a truck, police said.

The dead included 14 children and 13 women.

The accident happened in the town of Sukkur, 425 kilometres north of Karachi in the southern province of Sindh.

Fida Hussain Shah, a senior Sukkur police officer who gave the casualty figure, said the bus driver was killed on the spot while the driver of the truck was wounded.

Police said the cause of the accident was not yet clear. All the dead and injured were riding in the bus, apart from the truck driver. Another police officer, Zia Soomro, said the death toll was 36, with 20 injured.

Most of the injured were in critical condition. Many were transferred to hospital in Karachi after initial treatment in Sukkur.

Among the dead were six members of a 10-person family travelling in the bus. Two more family members were injured while two were unhurt - Maryam Bibi, 18, and her six-year-old brother, Samad.