Train driver stops suddenly to buy milk!
archive photo
The duties of a train driver in Pakistan have been suspended because he stopped suddenly while working on the railways in order to buy milk, an official source said Wednesday.
A video spread through social networks showing the driver's assistant receiving a snack from a street stall before returning to the train full of passengers.
The accident, which occurred on Monday, raised questions about railway safety in Pakistan, where train accidents are frequent.
"When you stop the train in the middle of the tracks, it becomes a safety issue. Safety is our priority and we cannot tolerate anything that might undermine it," Ministry of Railways spokesman Syed Ijaz Hassan Shah told AFP.
The train was on a journey between the cities of Lahore (east) and Karachi (south).
An official in the railway administration, who asked not to be named, admitted that such an accident is not uncommon in Pakistan, where the supervision system suffers from major loopholes.
And last June, at least 23 people were killed when two trains collided after one of them deviated from its tracks in the south of the country.
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