Trains collide in Pakistan

A passenger train collides with an oil-tanker train in the Gambar province of western Pakistan, killing 300 people and seriously injuring another 150 on this day in 1957. The passenger train, bound for Karachi from western Pakistan, was overcrowded, which was not unusual at the time. However, the number of people on board did not cause this tragic accident, it only increased the casualties. The accident was the result of poor routing and a lack of signals on the tracks in the area. A cargo train carrying oil was stationary on the tracks near Montgomery. When the passenger train was mistakenly sent down the same rails, the engineer had no idea of the impending disaster since it was night and there were no signals to warn him of the oil train’s location. The passenger train was going full speed when it slammed into the back of the other train at just before midnight. The collision set off a tremendous explosion, endangering those who had not been killed immediately. Rescue efforts and the search for bodies went on through the night and the entire next day. Bodies were recovered hundreds of feet away from the crash site.