SEHWAN/HYDERABAD: At least 20 people, including eight women and ten children, were killed when a passenger van veered off the road and fell into a ditch along the Indus Highway near Sehwan.

Police said the accident took place near the Sehwan toll plaza as the van driver failed to see the barricade raised along the road, and fell in the rainwater on the roadside after skirting off the road at speed.

The local people as well as those travelling in the vehicles volunteered to pull out the bodies from the water before the police and rescue teams could arrive.

A duty doctor at Abdullah Shah Institute of Medical and Health Sciences in Sehwan, Jamshoro district, confirmed that they had received 18 bodies and an injured person who had been kept on a ventilator.

He said that of those killed, eight were women, six girls and four boys.

He said the names of the deceased had not been identified so far.

The police said that the victims were travelling from Khairpur to Sehwan in the van. They were headed to the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalander in Sehwan.

Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon issued a condolence message while saying that the rescue teams had been sent to the site of the accident. It said that officials of the police and district administration were present on site.

It added that emergency had been declared in Sehwan’s hospitals.