On Thursday morning at Kotri railway station, the Karachi-bound Allama Iqbal Express narrowly avoided a disaster when a power fluctuation in the station’s panel abruptly altered the direction of the rails while the train was negotiating a turn.
Shakeel Memon, the chief controller of the railway, told Dawn that it took an hour and 35 minutes for the train to resume running. He stated that the incident happened at 6.40 am.
The train was headed for Karachi and was departing from Sialkot. When it encountered a change in the power supply system, the train split into two paths on the track with a thud at the yard, he said, adding that fortunately, the train avoided derailment and no passengers were reported injured.
Some officials claimed that the train’s wheels jammed and caused the disaster. Till technical experts cleared the route, the Karakorum, Millat, Pakistan, and Mehran trains were stopped at Hyderabad Railway Station.