Emergency declared in govt hospitals across Quetta, all relevant institutions placed on high alert
\nQUETTA
\nA blast targeting a train martyred at least 24 people on Sunday in province of Balochistan, according to foreign media. Media reports said the shuttle train was heading from Quetta Cantonment to the railway station when it was targeted near Chaman Phatak shortly after 8am.
\nThe nature of the explosion could not be immediately ascertained. In a statement, Shahid Rind, an aide to the chief minister on media and political affairs, said the \u201cnumber of martyrs\u201d in the blast has reached 24. These included three personnel of the Frontier Corps, he added.\u201dMultiple people\u201d were injured in the blast, including women and children, who were taken to a hospital, Rind said. Pakistan Railways said rescue trucks and a relief train were dispatched to the site to assist in emergency operations.
\nThe explosion derailed three coaches, including the locomotive, while two coaches overturned. Security forces immediately cordoned off the area and launched a rescue operation, it added. The blast was loud enough to be heard in various distant areas of the city and caused damage to nearby houses.
\nA fire reported to have sparked in nearby cars was controlled after intense efforts involving multiple fire brigade vehicles. One video showed about 10 vehicles, mostly small cars, charred as fire and black smoke emerged from some of them. Multiple ambulances could be seen arriving at the site in another video.
\nEarlier footage showed huge plumes of smoke rising from a raging fire, with at least one train coach turned over at a short distance. The police, the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) and the bomb disposal squad reached the incident site to conduct investigations.
\nA medical emergency was declared in Quetta\u2019s hospitals, with all doctors, paramedical staff, and medical personnel summoned to duty, Rind was quoted as saying by the government on X.Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti was personally monitoring the situation, according to the statement.
\n\u201cThe involved elements cannot escape the law,\u201d Rind said, adding that the injured were being provided the best treatment facilities.CM Bugti strongly condemned the \u201cterrorist attack\u201d.\u201dThe terrorists of Fitna al Hindustan are proving their savagery by targeting innocent civilians, women, and children,\u201d Bugti wrote on X.
\nThe state has designated Balochistan-based terrorist groups as Fitna-al-Hindustan to highlight India\u2019s alleged role in terrorism and destabilisation across Pakistan. \u201cLet the enemy hear this: there will be no safe haven left for terrorists in Balochistan. We will hunt down the terrorists, their facilitators, and their masterminds one by one and bring them to justice, and this war will continue until the last terrorist is eliminated,\u201d Bugti vowed.
\nRailways Minister Hanif Abbasi also condemned the \u201ccowardly act of terrorism\u201d, adding that it would not weaken the nation\u2019s resolve against militancy.In a statement, Abbasi said that \u201canti-Pakistan elements operating from India and Afghanistan were sponsoring terrorism to destabilise the country\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Emergency declared in govt hospitals across Quetta, all relevant institutions placed on high alert QUETTA A blast targeting a train martyred at least 24 people on Sunday in province of Balochistan, according to foreign media. Media reports said the shuttle train was heading from Quetta Cantonment to the railway station when it was targeted near …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":98212,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98199"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98217,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98199\/revisions\/98217"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}