BAHAWALPUR: At least 120 people have been dead and around 200 injured in an oil tanker fire incident that took place in Ahmedpur Sharqia tehsil of Bahawalpur district on Sunday morning, the district management confirmed.
Bahawalpur Deputy Commissioner Rana Muhammad Saleem Afzal said that a Lahore-bound oil tanker was slipped from the road and overturned, causing the oil to leak from the tanker. He said that hundreds of people from nearby villages riding bikes and cars rushed to the scene to collect oil.
The district management chief further said that soon after, a huge fire erupted in the oil tanker which engulfed hundreds of people engaged in collecting oil. “So far, 120 people including women and children have died and several others have been injured in inferno,” he said.
The police sources told APP that the oil tanker carrying 25,000 liters of oil was on its way from Karachi to Lahore when it slipped off the road and overturned in Kachi Pul area, some eight kilometers off Ahmedpur Sharqia city. “People living in roadside villages, carrying domestic pots rushed to the scene to collect oil and they also made phone calls to their relatives living in other villages to immediately come to collect oil,” they said.
They said that Motorway Police reached the scene and urged the people to keep away from the tanker as fire could erupt from within the vehicle but the people continued to collect as much oil as they possibly could.
“Suddenly, a huge fire erupted in the oil tanker which engulfed all people standing around the vehicle,” the police personnel said. Around 50 people, among them women and children, died on the spot and others received severe burn injuries.
The Rescue 1122 and other ambulance services rushed to the scene to shift the injured to the hospital; more than 60 injured succumbed to their injuries on the way to the hospital. According to reports, Ahmedpur Sharqia Health Center and Bahawal Victoria Hospital had no burn wards to treat the injured, some of whom had suffered burn injuries on 80 percent of their bodies. The district management has been shifting some of the injured to Nishat Hospital Multan.
Emergency has been declared at all hospitals and rescue efforts are underway to shift the injured to Bahawalpur Victoria Hospital Bahawalpur, Combined Military Hospital Bahawalpur and Nishtar Hospital Bahawalpur.