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A passenger bus in Pakistan caught fire after an electrical short-circuit in its air conditioning unit, killing 17 people from the same extended family, including a dozen children.
The provincial Information Minister Sharjeel Memon said on Thursday that the bus was carrying around 50 people who were related to one another from the southern city of Karachi to their hometown in the province of Sindh.
The family moved to Karachi in August when their remote town was inundated by devastating floods that killed more than 2,000 people in the country.
They were returning to Khairpur Nathan Shah after much of the water had receded there, one member of the family said.
The fire burned the entire vehicle and some of the bodies were charred beyond recognition, local police official Javed Baloch said.
Bad roads, poorly maintained vehicles and a substandard safety regime cause numerous accidents in Pakistan every year, resulting in thousands of deaths, according to government statistics. (dpa/NAN)
