27 women, kids killed in Wedding stampede

MULTAN—The death toll in a wedding ceremony due to a fir triggering a stampede and wall collapse near the city of Dera Ghazi Khan, on Saturday night has risen to 27, a police officer said Sunday. At least 27 women and children were killed when they crushed out of a wedding ceremony due to a fire triggering a stampede and wall collapse near the city of Dera Ghazi Khan, a police officer said Sunday.
An electric wire fell on a house where a large number of women and children were celebrating a wedding Saturday night at Jhok Utra in Kot Chatta area of Dera Ghazi Khan district, police officer Khadim Hussain told a private TV channel on Sunday. The wire fell on the building due to fireworks by the participants, which caused stampede, he said, adding that some 40 people mostly women and children were injured who were shifted to the Dera Ghazi Khan Hospital and other nearby hospitals.
Meanwhile, the state-run PTV television put the death toll at 18 and the injured at 45. Witnesses said that several injured are in critical condition as they were badly burned.
A fire erupted in a wedding tent in eastern Pakistan, triggering a stampede and the collapse of a wall that killed 27 women and children, police said Sunday. The bride was among the dead.
More than 30 other people in the wedding party were injured late Saturday night in Jhok Utra, a village about 290 miles southwest of the capital Islamabad, area police officer Khadim Hussain Khadim said. It was not known if the count of those injured included some people who later died.
Heat from high-intensity lights apparently sparked the blaze in a large canvas tent where more than 100 women and children, many singing wedding songs, were present, Khadim said. Men attending the wedding were in a separate tent — following conservative Muslim tradition — that was not damaged.
Twenty women and seven children died, either from burns or from injuries suffered during the stampede or when a newly built brick wall collapsed on top of those trying to escape the fire.
Khadim said those fleeing were forced to escape down a narrow street, and that the wall collapsed after many people were pushed against it.
Fatima, a 32-year-old woman who attended the wedding and like some Pakistani women goes by one name, said the fire started suddenly near the roof of the tent. That sparked a panicked stampede, with dozens of women trying to squeeze through the tent’s door.
“We were sitting on one side talking with each other while some women were singing when there was fire in the upper part of the tent,” Fatima said. Her hands were colored with the traditional henna floral designs that women commonly use at weddings in Pakistan. “We ran to save our lives”.
He said most of the victims were women and young girls who were singing wedding songs when an electric short-circuit gutted a makeshift tent that had been erected outside the bride’s house. The mishap also triggered a stampede and several people were buried when the wall of a house in a narrow lane collapsed, he said.
“A total of 22 people, including 12 women, five children and five men have died,” Khan said. Abid Hussain, 28, who lost his young son and daughter, said there were more than 100 guests in the tent when the fire broke out. “It was caused by an electric short circuit,” he said. “People fleeing in panic climbed a mud and brick wall of a house which caved in killing several people.”
More than 20 people were still in hospitals in Dera Ghazi Khan and Multan cities, some of them in serious condition, he added. Hospital officials said at least five people were in critical condition.—Agencies