Rehman Baba Express derailment near Multan kills at least five, injures dozens
Fourteen coaches of the Karachi-to-Peshawar passenger train derailed near Sher Shah Railway Station on October 13, 2026, with conflicting reports on the final death toll.
A passenger train derailment near Multan, Pakistan killed at least five people and injured dozens more early on October 13, 2026, when fourteen coaches of the Rehman Baba Express left the tracks near Sher Shah Railway Station. The Karachi-to-Peshawar bound service was traveling at approximately 100 kilometers per hour when the accident occurred at around 5:15am, according to initial investigations that attributed the crash to a technical problem in passenger coach No. 12430-6.
The death toll reported by Pakistani media shifted as more information became available. Early reports from The Nation cited at least four passengers killed and 40 injured, while Dawn’s initial coverage confirmed five fatalities including a two-year-old child and 49 injured. Later reporting from The Express Tribune raised the confirmed death toll to seven people, including a minor child, with more than 50 others injured. The discrepancy between initial and final figures is typical of rapidly developing disaster coverage, where early counts often understate casualties as rescue operations continue and hospitals report additional fatalities.
The accident site at Sher Shah Bridge left a significant emergency response footprint. With fourteen carriages derailed, rescue and medical teams faced a complex extraction operation in the early morning hours. The scale of the derailment suggests substantial track damage and the likelihood of prolonged service disruption on one of Pakistan’s main north-south railway corridors.
Federal authorities moved quickly to establish accountability mechanisms. The Nation reported that Federal Government Inspector of Railways Amir Nisar Chaudhry conducted an official investigation on October 17-18, just days after the crash. The specific technical failure in coach No. 12430-6 identified in early reports will likely form the central focus of that inquiry, though railway safety investigations of this scale typically examine maintenance records, inspection protocols, and whether warning signs preceded the final failure.
The Rehman Baba Express operates on Pakistan’s busiest passenger rail corridor, connecting the southern port city of Karachi with Peshawar near the Afghan border. Any systemic safety issue identified in this investigation would have implications well beyond the single service involved, given the shared infrastructure and rolling stock across Pakistan Railways’ long-distance network. The inquiry’s findings, when released, will test whether the technical failure was an isolated maintenance lapse or indicative of broader pressures on an underfunded national railway system.