At least 30 killed in Pakistan train crash

At least 30 people were killed and dozens injured Monday in a train crash in southern Pakistan, police said.

A spokesman for Pakistan Railways told AFP a train heading from Karachi to Sargodha, derailed on to a track carrying a service from Rawalpindi in the opposite direction.

“Several people have been killed and many others trapped inside,” the official said.

Umar Tufail, a senior police officer at Daharki confirmed the death toll as 30.

Mobile phone footage shown on television from the site showed a mangled wreckage, with several green Pakistan railway carriages lying on their side.

Rail accidents are common in Pakistan, which inherited thousands of kilometres of track and trains from former colonial power Britain.

But the network has seen decades of decline due to corruption, mismanagement and lack of investment.

At least 75 people died when a train caught fire while travelling from Karachi to Rawalpindi in October 2019.

Two trains carrying hundreds of passengers collided in Karachi in 2016 killing 21 people.