KHAPLU – At least five people were killed and four others injured after a passenger vehicle fell into the Neelum River in Azad Kashmir on Sunday, local officials reported.
The vehicle was traveling from Kel to Tau Butt when it plunged 200 feet into a ravine and ended up in the river near the Karimabad area in Tehsil Athmuqam, according to rescue officials.
It carried around 20 passengers, with seven still missing.
“So far, we have recovered five dead bodies,” Muhammad Mukhtar Ayyub, said the Rescue 1122 in-charge for Neelum Valley. “Among the deceased was a 12-year-old boy. No woman was in the vehicle.”
In addition to Rescue 1122 members, police, army, district administration officials, and local volunteers were participating in the search and rescue operation.
“We have also called in a team of professional divers to recover the missing persons,” Ayyub said, adding that the injured had been shifted to the hospital.
Manzoor Ahmad Butt, assistant commissioner of Neelum district, said that an emergency had been declared at Civil Hospital Tau Butt.
“The injured persons are in a stable condition,” Butt said. “There were seven tourists in the vehicle from Multan district of Punjab, and the rest were locals.”
Butt stated that he was monitoring the rescue operation and the local community was making extensive efforts to recover the missing passengers.
Road accidents are common in Pakistan, where traffic rules are rarely followed and roads, especially in rural areas, are often in poor condition. In the mountainous regions of Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir, road tragedies are frequent.
