Pakistani train derails killing three

ISLAMABAD - Three people were killed and up to 40 injured when a Pakistani passenger train derailed and one carriage plunged into a ravine.

All other passengers were believed to have been rescued, officials said.

But they said troops using searchlights in the dark were still scouring the site of the crash near the central city of Jhelum.

"Three were killed, including two women, and 30 to 40 were injured. All the other passengers in the carriages have been rescued," military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan said.

The Lahore-bound train was travelling from Rawalpindi, a city neighbouring the capital Islamabad, when it jumped the track on a curving slope, sending one carriage plunging 50 feet (15 metres) into a ravine, while the others came to rest on the slope, according to Ishaq Khakwani, a junior minister for railways.

Last July, at least 133 people died in a three-train pile-up in Pakistan's southern province of Sindh.

In Pakistan's worst train crash, 307 people were killed in 1990 when a packed passenger train smashed into a freight train, also in Sindh province. A train crash in Punjab province killed 136 people in 1997.

- REUTERS