A van plunged into a drain in Kasur claiming the lives of at least eight people and injuring two others injured.
The incident took place near Raiwind, as 10 people were returning from a wedding on Friday, local media reported.
Local police said the vehicle, which was a carry-box van, lost control and fell into the drain.
Rescue teams, including personnel from Rescue 1122, responded swiftly to the scene and transported the injured to Kasur’s Baba Bulleh Shah Hospital for treatment. The two survivors are reportedly in stable condition. The victims were identified as members of the same group attending the wedding.
Police investigation suggests that overspeeding might have been the cause of the accident, and the driver has been arrested. However, a statement from Rescue 1122 noted that the driver had been feeling drowsy at the time of the crash.
Last week, at least 16 people lost their lives when two public transport vehicles carrying pilgrims to Sehwan from Burewala, Punjab, met with deadly accidents in Khairpur and Shaheed Benazirabad districts on Saturday.
In the first accident, a bus overturned while attempting to avoid a rickshaw on the National Highway in the Ranipur area of Khairpur district, killing 10 people and injuring around 40 others.
Khairpur’s SSP Tauheed Rehman Memon said that the bus was transporting devotees of Hazrat Lal Shahbaz Qalandar (RA) to Sehwan, where the annual three-day urs is set to commence on February 17.
He attributed the accident to overspeeding, saying that the driver lost control while trying to swerve past a rickshaw.
The deceased and injured were taken to government hospitals in Gambat and Ranipur. Some of the injured sustained severe fractures.
Local residents, Rescue 1122 teams, police, National Highway and Motorway Police personnel, Rangers, and Edhi volunteers assisted in retrieving bodies and shifting the injured to hospitals.
In another tragic incident, a van carrying residents of Burewala from Shaheed Benazirabad to Sehwan crashed into a truck-trailer after colliding with a donkey cart on Aamri Road near Qazi Ahmed taluka, killing six people and injuring eight others.
The pilgrims had initially arrived in Shaheed Benazirabad by train before continuing their journey to Sehwan in the ill-fated van.
The dead and injured were taken to Taluka Hospital in Qazi Ahmed, with the more critically wounded later transferred to Peoples Medical College Hospital in Nawabshah.
