Seven people were killed and more than 20 were injured on Sunday in a Kachhi bridge collision on the Quetta-Sukkur section of the National Highway, after two Mazda trucks and a passenger wagon crashed into each other on a narrow bridge near Mach.
Police said the crash happened near the Zamindar Hotel in the Mach area of Kachhi district in Balochistan. All three vehicles tried to overtake at the same time while crossing the narrow bridge, and they collided in the middle of it. The seven people who died were all travelling in the wagon, and they died at the scene. Women and children were among the dead, police said.
Kachhi bridge collision: rescue hampered by ambulance shortage
Police and rescue workers reached the bridge soon after the crash. They moved the bodies and the injured to Mach Civil Hospital. Several of the injured were in critical condition, and doctors began shifting them to Quetta for better treatment.
That transfer ran into a basic problem. Official sources said the local hospital in Mach had only one operational government ambulance, while two others were out of order. The shortage slowed the movement of seriously injured patients to Quetta, which lies roughly 65 kilometres away. For families at the scene, the wait added a second emergency on top of the first one.
The dead have not been named yet. Police have not said which vehicle moved first into the path of the others, and no case details were shared by Sunday night. The injured were still being counted and treated as the transfers continued, so the toll may change.
A familiar pattern on Balochistan highways
Sunday’s crash fits a pattern that Balochistan’s highways keep repeating. Earlier this year, a speeding coach hit a family car in Khuzdar, killing four members of one family, including a father and son. Police blamed speed in that crash as well. In the Kachhi case, the reported cause is different in detail but similar in kind: three drivers judged the same gap at the same moment, on a bridge too narrow for the manoeuvre.
Our explainer on what traffic accidents cost Pakistan sets out the wider picture. Pakistan spends around $9 billion a year on medical treatment for people injured on the roads, according to figures cited there. The National Transport Research findings quoted in that explainer put human error at the centre of the problem, ahead of road condition or vehicle faults. Overspeeding and careless overtaking sit at the top of that list.
Narrow bridges on national highways are a known weak point in that chain. A bridge removes the shoulder and removes any escape space. A driver who misjudges an overtaking move on open road may still recover. A driver who misjudges it on a bridge has nowhere to go, and neither does the traffic coming the other way.
What happens next
Police are expected to record statements from the surviving drivers and witnesses. The critically injured patients were being moved to Quetta in stages because of the ambulance shortage. Hospital officials in Mach will hand the bodies over to families after legal formalities.
The ambulance gap is likely to draw its own questions. A district hospital on a national highway, with two of its three ambulances out of order, was left to handle one of the worst road crashes in the area this year with a single vehicle. (Source: Dawn)
Frequently asked questions
Where did the Kachhi bridge collision happen?
It happened on a bridge on the Quetta-Sukkur section of the National Highway near the Zamindar Hotel in the Mach area of Kachhi district, Balochistan.
How many people were killed and injured?
Seven people were killed, all of them passengers in the wagon, and more than 20 people were injured. Several of the injured were in critical condition and were being shifted to Quetta.
What caused the collision?
Police said all three vehicles tried to overtake each other at the same time on the narrow bridge and collided. A fuller police account is still awaited.
Why were the injured slow to reach Quetta?
Officials said Mach’s local hospital had only one working government ambulance, while two others were out of order, which hampered the transfer of patients.
