Death toll from tanker fire in Pakistan defines despair
2So said police officer Abdul Malik, in describing the carnage from a massive fuel tanker fire in the town of Bahawalpur early Sunday.
But while the death toll of more than 150 people is shocking in and of itself, the reason the people died should give us pause.
In a word: despair.
After the truck carrying some 6,600 gallons of gasoline crashed on a highway outside Bahawalpur, an announcement of the crash was made over a loudspeaker at a local mosque.
Scores of villagers rushed to the scene to collect spilled fuel. Men, women and children carrying buckets, jerrycans, water coolers, pots and other kitchen utensils ignored police who tried to keep them away from the tanker.
The chance to get free gas pouring out of the wreck caused people to throw caution to the wind.
“When [the tanker] turned over the residents of the nearby village of Ramzanpur Joya rushed to the site with buckets and other containers, and a large number of people on motorcycles also came and started collecting the spilling fuel. After about 10 minutes the tanker exploded in a huge fireball and enveloped the people collecting petrol,” regional police chief Raja Riffat told the Pakistani newspaper Dawn.
Photographs of the carnage show the charred remains of cars, motorcycles and bicycles. As for the victims, many were burned beyond recognition and will have to be identified through DNA testing.
Adding to the shock that swept the nation and the world was the fact that the disaster struck on the eve of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr that follows the holy month of Ramadan. While Saudi Arabia and most other Muslim countries started celebrating the holiday Sunday, Pakistanis marked it Monday.
‘Bodies everywhere’
Police officer Malik, who was quoted at the start of this editorial, said that when the flames subsided “we saw bodies everywhere. So many were just skeletons. The people who were alive were in really bad shape.”
Four victims who were taken to a hospital about 100 miles from the accident site died overnight. Fifty more severely burned victims were being treated at the hospital.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif cut short a trip abroad and rushed home, reaching Bahawalpur on Monday to visit the victims and console the affected families.
Sharif announced 2 million rupees – almost $20,000 – as financial assistance for each family that lost someone in the highway inferno.
The prime minister also handed over a check of 1 million rupees – $10,000 – for each burn victim being treated at the hospital in Bahawalpur.
“This is not compensation, no compensation is possible for precious human life, but it is to help the affected families in distress,” Sharif said.
The Pakistani leader is right: You can’t put a price on precious human life.
And yet, the 157 villagers who died were in such desperate financial straits that they were willing to risk their lives for a container of gasoline.
Even more disturbing was the presence of children at the spill site. Is there any doubt they were told by adults to go there to collect the fuel?
But before passing judgment on people who would risk everything, it is important to consider the circumstances of their existence.
Because of their poverty and bleak futures, they tend to act in ways that would be inconceivable to those are comparatively comfortable.
Indeed, being poor means being vulnerable – to natural and man-made disasters.
It also means being easily swayed by individuals who hold out the promise of a better tomorrow.
Thus, it is no accident that Pakistan and other poor countries around the world are easy prey for terrorist organizations such as Islamic State and al-Qaida.
In the war on global terrorism being conducted by the United States and other Western countries, the root causes of the spread of extremist ideologies is often ignored.
When more than 150 Pakistanis perish because they were in need of gasoline, the U.S. and its allies need to pay attention.