A van fell into a water-filled ditch in Pakistan's flood-hit south, killing 20 passengers and injuring 13 others overnight, police announced on Friday.
The incident took place in Sindh province on the Indus Highway near the city of Sahvan Sharif.
Police officer Imran Qureshi stated that the van was bringing passengers from the Khairpur district to a famous Sufi shrine in Sehwan. Qureshi pointed out that 13 of the passengers were rescued and moved to a nearby hospital.
Hospital officials revealed that eight women and 10 children, ages 10 to 15, were among the dead. Two of the injured were said to be in critical condition.
Southern Sindh province was the worst-hit by flooding triggered by unprecedented monsoon rains and made worse by climate change.
In previous remarks, Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif noted: “The catastrophic flooding in Pakistan impacted 33 million people, more than half are women and children.”
"Despite seven times the average of extreme rain in the south, we struggled on as raging torrents from our melting glaciers in the north ripped out over 8000 kilometers of highways, damaged more than 3000 kilometers of railway tracks, and tore apart hundreds of bridges like toothpicks in their rage,” Sharif added.
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