At least 120 killed in Pakistan train crash

GHOKTI, Pakistan - At least 120 people were killed and hundreds injured in Pakistan when a passenger train crashed into another at a station and a third train then ploughed into the wreckage, police said.

"So far, we have taken out at least 120 bodies," police official Shabbir Billo told Reuters from near the scene of the crash near Ghotki, a small town in southern Sindh province.

An express train coming from the eastern city of Lahore rammed into the rear of a train stopped at a station for repairs, the private Geo television station said. A third train then ploughed into the derailed carriages, police said.

Nineteen carriages were derailed in all, police said.

Police said it was too early to determine the cause of the crash but a technical fault was suspected.

A Reuters photographer said he saw about 50 blood-soaked bodies lying near the scene of the crash.

Rescue workers and police were trying to recover bodies from the wreckage.

Many injured people were being given treatment at the site while others were searching for missing friends or relatives, he said.

Various opponents of the government, including nationalist tribesmen, have attacked railway lines in southern Pakistan but a senior police official said he believed a technical fault was to blame.

"In my view it was a technical mistake," Ghotki police chief Agha Mohammad Tahir told the private Geo television station.

- REUTERS