Toll from oil tanker fire in Pakistan climbs to 157

Rescue official Mohammad Baqar at the Bahawalpur hospital said 20 more victims were transported on Monday by a military C-130 plane to Lahore for better medical care.

Prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who visited the Victoria Hospital in Bahawalpur on Monday, ordered that more of those most critically hurt be transferred to bigger hospitals in the area, Baqar said.

Sharif cut short his trip abroad and rushed back home, reaching Bahawalpur on Monday to visit the victims and console the affected families. Sharif also announced 2 million rupees — almost $20,000 — as financial assistance for each family that lost someone in the highway inferno. Sharif also handed over checks of 1 million rupees ($10,000) for each burn victim being treated at the hospital in Bahawalpur.

“This is not compensation, no compensation is possible for precious human life, but it is to help the affected families in distress,” Sharif said.

Many of the bodies will have to be identified through DNA testing, said Baqar.

“I have never seen anything like it in my life. Victims trapped in the fireball. They were screaming for help,” said Abdul Malik, a police officer who was among the first to arrive at the scene.

When the flames subsided, he said, “we saw bodies everywhere. So many were just skeletons. The people who were alive were in really bad shape.”

The dead included men, women and children.

The disaster struck on the eve of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr that follows the holy month of Ramadan. While Saudi Arabia and most other Muslim countries started celebrating the holiday Sunday, Pakistanis are marking it on Monday.

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Associated Press Writer Zarar Khan in Islamabad contributed to this report.

Irum Asim, The Associated Press

by Canadian Press

Toll from oil tanker fire in Pakistan climbs to 157

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