File photo: Vehicles drive with headlights on as fog envelops the areas of Lahore, Pakistan (Picture credit: AP)
At least 23 people were killed in two separate road accidents in Pakistan on Saturday, including six children, as dense fog and over-speeding continued to disrupt traffic across several regions, according to officials.In the first incident, 14 people, including six children and five women, lost their lives when a truck carrying passengers fell from a bridge into a dry canal in Punjab’s Sargodha district. According to news agency PTI, the accident occurred in Kot Momin tehsil, around 200 kilometres from Lahore, during the early hours of the day.A spokesperson for Punjab Emergency Services Rescue 1122 said the truck had 23 people on board, most of them members of an extended family travelling from Islamabad to Faisalabad to attend a funeral.
“As the motorway was closed because of heavy fog, the truck took a local route. It fell from the Galapur bridge in Kot Momin tehsil into a dry canal as the driver lost control over the vehicle because of poor visibility,” the spokesperson said. Nine people were injured in the crash and are being treated at the Civil Hospital in Kot Momin, according to PTI.In a separate incident in Balochistan, at least nine people were killed and 15 others injured when a passenger coach overturned on the Makran Coastal Highway near Gwadar early Saturday. Coastal Highway Police Superintendent of Police Aslam Bangulzai confirmed the accident, saying the coach was travelling from Jiwani to Karachi. “The accident took place early this morning on the Makran coastal highway as the passenger coach overturned due to over speeding,” Bangulzai said, as quoted by PTI.Dense fog has severely affected traffic movement across Punjab’s motorways and major roads during night and early morning hours since the onset of an extreme cold wave last month. As reported by Dawn, several motorway sections have been closed intermittently due to low visibility.Pakistan frequently witnesses fatal road accidents, with factors such as over-speeding, poor enforcement of traffic rules, driver fatigue and weak licensing controls cited as major causes. On December 31, at least 14 passengers were killed in a head-on collision between a bus and a van on the Jhang-Faisalabad road in Punjab, according to PTI.
