Relatives desperately sought news of their loved ones yesterday as medical workers struggled to identify mangled corpses a day after around 150 people died in Pakistan's worst train crash in 15 years.
Stations across the country are crowded with people frantically searching victim lists posted by the authorities after the three-train pile-up early on Wednesday near the southern town of Ghotki.
Thousands of others travelling in buses, trains and trucks flocked to hospitals near the crash site, where for some, severed body parts held the answer they had been dreading.
"I can recognise his feet and hands," said sobbing Allah Ditta, who came from Bhawalpur, a town in central Punjab province, to search for his missing brother.
A senior rail official said that 150 people had died, while doctors at the hospital said 164 people were killed. A Pakistan railways Press release would only confirm 138 deaths.
Officials said they were trying to identify nearly 100 unclaimed bodies, which lay shrouded by white sheets in the small government hospital's courtyard nearly 36 hours after the collision. Ice-blocks and fans were used to cool the bodies because of the lack of a nearby mortuary.
"We have so far handed 37 bodies to relatives but 96 bodies are still lying at the hospital as their identities have not yet been established," railway police officer Shafi Mohammad Mughal said.
The accident happened when one of the trains, the Quetta Express, stopped for repairs at Sarhad station, seven kilometres from Ghotki, and the Karachi Express coming from Lahore smashed into it in the early hours. A number of carriages were catapulted on to a parallel track and a third train, the Tez Gam Express, careered into them.
Rail chiefs blamed the Karachi Express driver, who died in the crash, saying he misread a green signal meant for the stationary train.
As a team of senior investigators arrived at the site, railway sources said on condition of anonymity that the Quetta Express should have been taken to a loopline for repairs instead of staying on the mainline.
The government has set up toll-free telephone hotlines and crisis centres at railway stations following the crash.
But it was no consolation for some. "My two sons were on the Karachi Express, but I am completely in the dark," said Lutafullah Khan, 58, outside Lahore station.
PHOTO CAPTION
People offer prayers at funeral of the Wednesday's trains accident victims July 15, 2005 in Ghotki Pakistan. (AP)