At least 9 people were killed and 14 others were critically injured as a high-speed car rammed into a passenger van on the main RCD highway in Balochistan’s district Khuzdar on Tuesday.
According to reports, the two vehicles collided head-on near the Tutak Cross on the RCD Highway in the afternoon, resulting in six people dying on the spot, while several other passengers were gravely injured. The levies personnel and the rescue workers rushed the injured to Khuzdar’s Government Teaching Hospital (GTH).
Hospital officials said three injured passengers later succumbed to their wounds, bringing the death toll to 9. Five others are reportedly in critical condition, while several others may suffer lifelong crippling injuries.
Political workers and foreign media organizations claim that Balochistan’s highways kill more people annually than terrorism. A staggering network of 40,000km of roads and highways spans much of Balochistan, but none of them is double-lane. Thousands of accidents occur on these highways every year, killing numerous passengers and leaving countless others with crippling injuries.
The 813-kilometre Quetta-Karachi Highway – also known as the RCD highway – is the epicentre of it all, accounting for 42% of Balochistan’s annual road accidents. The infamous single-lane highway has earned the sobriquet “the killer road” due to the sheer number of deaths it witnesses every year.
The RCD highway is a major NATO route that connects Pakistan’s industrial hub Karachi to Balochistan’s Chaman district which borders Afghanistan. A government-sponsored investigation team attributed the rising number of road accidents to poor infrastructure – the traffic authorities have no way to monitor the speed limit and fitness of the thousands of vehicles passing through the highway daily; the single-lane highway makes it perilous for vehicles to cross each other; drivers cannot see ahead at sharp curves due to the mountainous nature of the area, were a few of the major reasons found in the investigation.
The inquiry report recommended the immediate expansion of the highway into a two-way road to reduce the number of accidents, a suggestion that has been mostly ignored and never put into action.