An overturned oil tanker exploded on a Pakistani highway as local villagers gathered to collect the leaking fuel, engulfing them in an inferno that killed at least 148 people and critically burned scores more.
Authorities warned that the death toll could rise in the accident near Bahawalpur, a city of of about 1 million people near the Indian border. More than 150 people were injured, 50 of them critically, when the flames from the blast engulfed the crowd.
Pakistan Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif cut short a trip to London and raced home to his mourning nation. He ordered Punjab provincial officials to provide whatever rescue and medical personnel were needed and expressed "deep grief over the heavy loss of life in the unfortunate accident."
Regional police chief Raja Riffat told Pakistan's Dawn news agency it was not immediately clear what ignited the blast.
“When (the tanker) turned over the residents of the nearby village of Ramzanpur Joya rushed to the site with buckets and other containers, and a large number of people on motorcycles also came and started collecting the spilling fuel,”agency. “After about 10 minutes the tanker exploded in a huge fireball and enveloped the people collecting petrol."
Local official Rana Muhammad Saleem Afzal told Pakistan's Associated Press (APP) the Lahore-bound oil tanker had slipped from the road, causing hundreds of gallons to begin gushing out. About 120 people died immediately in the blast, and many more soon died from their burn wounds, he said.
District Emergency Officer Asif Raheem Channar told APP most of the bodies were burned beyond recognition and would require DNA testing to confirm identities.
Haroon-ur-Rasheed, ex-senior police official and an expert to deal with emergency and rescue operations in Bahawalpur, said it was too soon to determine what caused the explosion. But he said batteries on the truck, cigarettes lit by some people who had gathered to collect the oil or even cellphones could have ignited the blast.
Authorities said scores of motorcycles, cars, trucks and bicycles also burned.
Saznoor Ahmad, 30, whose two cousins were killed in the fire, told The Associated Press the crowd of people screamed as the flames engulfed them.
"The fire moved so fast," he said.
After the explosion, Mohammed Salim ran toward the smoke carrying buckets of water and sand. But he told AP the heat was too intense to reach those in need.
"I could hear people screaming but I couldn't get to them," he said.
Abdul Malik, a local police officer who was also among the first to arrive, described a "horrible scene."
"I have never seen anything like it in my life. Victims trapped in the fireball. They were screaming for help," he told AP. "We saw bodies everywhere, so many were just skeletons. The people who were alive were in really bad shape."
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