MULTAN, Pakistan — A head-on collision between a passenger bus and a truck on a highway in southern Pakistan killed 58 people on
Tuesday, police said.
The collision ignited a fire, and a rescuer later described how he carried out a survivor, a 4-year-old girl, from the burning bus.
The bus, with about 70 people on board, had left Swat Valley and was en route to the southern port city of Karachi when it collided head-on with the truck near Khairpur district in Sindh province, said police official Ghulam Jhokhio.
He said the bus quickly caught fire after its fuel tank exploded.
The fatalities included 19 children, all under the age of 14, said local hospital official Jafar Soomro.
Fifteen people were injured and in the hospital, several of them in critical condition, he said.
A.D. Khawaja, deputy chief of highway police, said that the bus was speeding on a part of the highway under construction, and that the driver’s carelessness caused the accident.
Rescue officer Mohammad Ata described the inferno to Dunya TV as he held a little girl in his arms, and recounted how he pulled her out of the burning bus.
‘‘She was sitting all calm in a seat when I got into the bus on fire,’’ Ata said.