Pakistan train derailment kills four

At least four people were killed and over a dozen others injured in a train derailment Tuesday near Multan in the south of Pakistan's Punjab province, emergency services and a rescue worker told AFP.

Farooq Ahmed, a spokesman for Punjab's emergency services department, said four people had been killed and at least 17 injured while the cause of the incident remained unknown.

Ahmed added 11 ambulances and 30 rescue workers had been dispatched to the scene after the accident was called in at 5:21 am (0021 GMT).

A rescue worker at the derailment site confirmed at least four people were killed in the incident giving a higher figure of 25 people injured.

An AFP journalist saw the body of one person who had perished in the accident inside a train carriage.

Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif have expressed their concerns over the train's derailing in Punjab.

Rescue workers search for the victims following the derailment of passenger train Rehman Baba Express on the outskirts of Multan on Tuesday. AFP

Zardari ordered the authorities to "conduct transparent investigations to determine the cause of the accident".

At least 34 people were killed in August 2023 in southern Pakistan near Nawabshah when a train came off the tracks.

Crashes and derailments occur frequently on Pakistan's antiquated railway system, which has nearly 7,500 kilometres (4,600 miles) of track and carries more than 80 million passengers a year.

The colonial-era network still has tracks, junctions and bridges dating back more than 150 years, although modernisation is underway as part of the massive China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Agence France-Presse