At least 39 people died and four others were wounded in an accident after a passenger bus plunged into a ravine and caught fire near Chinki stop in the Bela area of the Lasbela district, Geo News reported Sunday. 

The accident took place in the wee hours of Sunday as the bus was en route to Karachi from Quetta. 

Bela Assistant Commissioner Hamza Anjum Nadeem said there were 48 passengers on board the ill-fated bus and the said number of bodies and injured passengers have been taken out, so far.

He said that the rescue operation is underway and the deceased and injured had been shifted to Civil Hospital, Lasbela.

The official, however, shared that the rescue workers faced obstacles as it was still dark in the morning due to the cold weather.

Meanwhile, the police said that the accident happened due to speeding as the bus went out of the driver’s control and careened into the ravine. They said that teams of the fire brigade, rescue services and law-enforcement agencies’ personnel arrived at the site of the accident and launched a rescue operation.

Efforts to completely douse the blaze were underway, they added.

Mansehra accident 

In a similar incident earlier this month, a five-month-old child was killed while 16 other passengers sustained injuries when a Muzaffarabad-bound bus plunged into a ravine in the Batrasi area in Mansehra. 

SHO Garhi Habibullah had said the police, with the help of Rescue 1122 personnel, shifted the injured to a nearby hospital where the condition of five was stated to be critical.