Pak oil tanker fire: Death toll rises to 175

With the death of 10 more people, the toll in Pakistan’s oil tanker fire rose to 175 today, making it one of the deadliest accidents in the country.

The patients breathed their last at Lahore, Multan and Faisalabad burn centres.

“The death toll in the oil tanker inferno today rose to 175 as 10 more succumbed to their injuries. The toll may continue to rise as most of the injured, over 60 people, have received 60 to 100 per cent burn injuries,” a senior official Jam Sajjad told PTI.

Quoting doctors, he said “it will be a miracle if they survived”.

The patients having 60 to 100 per cent burns are being anaesthetised, Sajjad said.

A senior doctor at the Jinnah Hospital in Lahore said many burnt patients are not kept in isolation rooms because of shortage of such rooms in burn centres in the hospitals in Punjab province.

“Such patients are vulnerable to infection which is most common cause of mortality in burn patients,” the doctor said.

At least 120 people including women and children were killed on the spot and 140 injured last week a day before Eid when they rushed to collect leaking fuel from a crashed oil tanker in Bahawalpur, some 400 km …read more