Seven of one family killed as van falls into Murree ravine

Seven people, among them three children and two women, were killed when a van carrying 14 members of a single family plunged into a ravine and caught fire on Baroha Link Road in Murree, according to rescue officials quoted by Minute Mirror.

The officials said the family was travelling back from a wedding in a nearby village when the vehicle left the road and fell into the deep ravine. The impact was severe, the van caught fire soon after it came down, and seven people died at the scene.

ARY News reported the same casualty figures, saying seven members of one family were killed and seven injured in the Murree road accident.

Minute Mirror identified the injured as Arshad, 40, Nighat, 35, Laiba, 17, Tayyab Mahmood, 10, Raima Noor, seven, Kashan, four, and Aima Noor, who is one and a half years old. Rescue teams moved them to Holy Family Hospital in Rawalpindi for treatment.

Officials said all 14 people on board belonged to the same family. Minute Mirror reported that further details about the circumstances that led to the accident were not immediately available.

The Murree crash was carried together with a second fatal accident in Azad Kashmir. Dawn reported that seven people were killed when a jeep plunged down a mountain slope on the outskirts of Muzaffarabad. The News International put the toll in that accident at seven as well, saying the jeep fell into a ravine.

The Express Tribune, which reported the two accidents in a single account, said they had killed 14 people between them: a figure consistent with seven dead in Murree and seven in Muzaffarabad.

The reports did not say what caused either vehicle to leave the road. None of the accounts published by the five outlets cited a statement from the district administrations of Murree or Muzaffarabad.

The Murree deaths again turn attention to travel on the hill link roads above Rawalpindi, where family vehicles carry passengers between villages and wedding parties move at night. The injured from Sunday's crash remain under treatment, and the rescue officials quoted did not give their condition.