Two accidents in Pakistan kill more than 50 people

More than 50 peo­ple were killed in two road acci­dents in Pak­istan on Sunday.

At least 41 peo­ple died in the south­west when a bus plunged into a ravine and caught fire, and at least 10 chil­dren drowned in a boat­ing acci­dent in the northwest.

All the dead so far recov­ered in this lake were between 7 and 14 years old.

Local offi­cials said the bod­ies were “uniden­ti­fi­able” at the scene of the bus crash.

The acci­dent occurred near the town of Bela in south­ern Balochis­tan on a bus en route to the port city of Karachi.

Local offi­cial Hamza Anjum told AFP news agency that 40 bod­ies had been found along with three injured, one of whom died short­ly after. The remain­ing two sur­vivors are in “seri­ous” condition.

The bus report­ed­ly hit a bridge post before the accident.

“We will inves­ti­gate the cause of the acci­dent,” Anjum said, adding that “we will con­duct a DNA test to iden­ti­fy the wreckage.”

The boat cap­sized on Than­da Dam, a lake near Kohat in Khy­ber Pakhtunkhwa province, near the Afghan border.

In addi­tion to the 10 dead, 11 chil­dren have been res­cued, six of them in crit­i­cal con­di­tion, local police offi­cer Mir Rauf told AFP. Nine oth­ers are believed to be missing.

The boat they were on, a day trip from a local madras­sa (Islam­ic school), car­ry­ing about 20 peo­ple, capsized.

“A res­cue oper­a­tion is under­way,” Rauch said.

Korat Munic­i­pal Deputy Com­mis­sion­er Furkan Khan told Reuters that there had been inci­dents in the past and that the police had closed the lake for recre­ation­al excur­sion boats.

Video footage aired on local sta­tions and social media showed res­cuers in the water.