Gas cylinder blast kills 13 passengers, injures six in Pakistan

More than a dozen people, including women and children, lose their lives and six others sustain injuries after a gas cylinder blew up in a passenger van in northwestern Pakistan.

Police officials said the Sunday incident took place as the overloaded van veered off the road and plunged into a ravine in the Karak district of the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, triggering an explosion in a compressed natural gas cylinder fueling the vehicle.

“The explosion killed 13 passengers, including five women and five children,” senior local police official, Ishtiaq Ahmad, said, adding that six passengers were also injured in the mishap.

The vehicle was heading towards the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan from Peshawar, which is the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and located approximately 190 kilometers (118 miles) northwest of the country’s capital, Islamabad.

According to police, the van was carrying members of the same family who were going to attend a wedding.

On December 24, at least eight people were killed and 20 others injured when a passenger van hit into a bus in Pakistan’s central town of Jehanian.

Pakistan has one of the world’s worst records for fatal traffic accidents. Road accidents frequently happen in the South Asian country due to poorly-maintained roads, violation of road safety rules and reckless driving.

Traffic police officials say that 90 percent of the road accidents in Pakistan are caused by human errors.