Bus plunge kills 20 in southern Pakistan

A policeman stands beside a damaged passenger mini bus after an overnight accident in Sehwan of Sindh province on November 18, 2022. – At least 20 people were killed and 14 others injured when a minibus crashed into a deep, water-logged ditch in southern Pakistan, police said on November 18. Pakistan has the world’s third-highest death rate from road accidents, a dire record blamed on decrepit highways and reckless driving. (Photo by Husnain ALI / AFP)

Islamabad, Pakistan — At least 20 people were killed, including 11 children, when a minibus crashed into a deep and water-logged ditch in southern Pakistan, police said Friday.

Pakistan has a staggeringly high rate of road deaths, blamed on decrepit highways and reckless driving.

Late Thursday in Sindh province, the bus “fell into a water-filled ditch on a road swept away by floods this summer”, local police official Khadim Hussain told AFP.

“The driver could not see the diversion sign on the road and so the van plunged into a 25-foot (eight-metre) deep ditch” near the town of Sehwan Sharif.

Hussain said the children killed were between two and eight years old, likely sitting on their parents’ laps when they were fatally injured.

A further 14 people were injured in the accident.

Pakistan was lashed by record monsoon rains this year that put a third of the country underwater, displaced eight million people and battered its already crumbling infrastructure.

Credible research has linked the catastrophic flooding to climate change.

According to World Health Organization estimates, more than 27,000 people were killed on Pakistan’s roads in 2018.