• 138 die in Bahawalpur oil tanker blaze
• People had gathered to siphon fuel from overturned vehicle

BAHAWALPUR: As many as 138 people were burnt alive and 117 injured, several of them severely, when an oil tanker which skidded off the National Highway caught fire near Ahmadpur East on Sunday morning.

As the tanker going to Lahore from Karachi with 50,000 litres of petrol overturned in front of Basti Azam Joya, farmers working in nearby cotton fields gathered with kitchen utensils to collect the leaking fuel.

This attracted some car riders and motorcyclists commuting on the highway to stop and collect free fuel.

Soon the tanker and spilled oil caught fire with a huge bang. The fire was so intense that it reduced everything at the site, including three cars, 75 motorcycles and a motorcycle rickshaw, to skeletons within no time.

The emergency rescue service 1122 station in Bahawalpur received the first emergency call after 6am, following which firefighting vehicles, ambulances and police reached the scene and began the relief operation.

A state of emergency was declared in the Ahmedpur East Hospital, Combined Military Hospital in Bahawalpur, Bahawal Victoria Hospital (BVH) and other health facilities in view of the large number of casualties.

Later, troops joined the relief operation on the orders of Chief of the Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa and cordoned off the site.

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif sent his helicopter to airlift the severely injured to the Multan Nishtar Hospital as the BVH, a teaching hospital, has no burns unit.

According to witnesses, a large number of people from three villages had turned up at the scene to collect petrol. They continued to collect the spilled petrol for over an hour before it caught fire.

Video footage taken a few minutes before the fire broke out showed some people collecting fuel from leakage points in the tanker and others from the ground. Although the cause of the fire could not be ascertained, it was suspected that a cigarette might have caused it.

A motorway and highway police official said the people had been warned against the looming danger but they did not listen.

Answering a question, he said the numerical strength of his team was too small to keep the people away by force.

District police chief Dr Akhtar Abbas said the cause of the tanker overturning was yet to be ascertained.

Witnesses Belal and his father Haji Allah Baksh, of Basti Azam Joya, said people were collecting petrol when a huge fireball erupted, which also burnt adjoining cotton crop.

Ahmedpur East Tehsil Headquarters Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr Aurengzeb said he was in the first batch of doctors to reach the spot along with volunteers. He told Dawn at the scene that the damage caused by the fire was horrifying. When they reached the place, several people were charred and others were screaming with pain.

Punjab Health Minister Khawaja Salman Rafiq said at the BVH that 123 people were killed at the scene, while others succumbed to burns in hospitals in Multan and Bahawalpur.

The dead included two personnel of the National Highways and Motorway Police.

Nine of them were stated to be from one family of the area.

Two women and 44 children were among the injured admitted to the BVH.

According to BVH sources, 51 critically burnt people were airlifted to Nishtar Hospital in Multan and Allied Hospital in Faisalabad by army helicopters and a C-130 plane of the Pakistan Air Force.

The chief minister visited the CMH and BVH and enquired after the health of the injured.

Talking to reporters at the BVH, he said the family of each deceased person would be paid Rs2 million in compensation and the injured Rs1m.

He said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had asked him to visit the scene and the Punjab government had decided to conduct a high-level inquiry into the incident.

At the CMH, the chief minister was briefed by Bahawalpur General Officer Commanding Maj Gen Amjad Ali Khattak, while at the BVH Dr Javed Iqbal briefed him about the treatment and condition of the critically injured people.

Relatives’ agony

Most of the bodies kept in the cold storage of the Quaid-i-Azam Medical College (QAMC) could not be identified.

Government officials and police said the bodies could be handed over to the families after DNA tests for which the assistance of the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) would also be sought.

The tests may take several days and the families will have to wait for the burial.

QAMC Principal Prof Ijlal Haider Rizvi said arrangements for the DNA test were available locally but the identification of the bodies with the help of the Nadra record would take time.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2017