Ghotki (Pakistan), July 13 (Reuters): Villagers living near Pakistan’s main railway line were jolted from pre-dawn sleep into a living hell today as an express train rammed into another and a third smashed into the wreckage.

Villagers rushing to the scene, near the town of Ghotki in Sindh province, were met by cries for help from the injured and scenes of carnage. Several villagers who had gone to help were killed in the second crash, some minutes after the first, when a train travelling north from Karachi ploughed into derailed carriages that had spilled across the tracks, police said.

“I heard a huge explosion,” resident Noor Hasan said of the initial crash, when an express travelling from Lahore rammed into the rear of another stopped at a station for repairs. “When I reached the spot I saw the crash. People were crying for help. Pieces of human flesh were spread all over the place.” Hasan said villagers used a loudspeaker at a nearby mosque to try to organise the rescue effort and gather the survivors. He said he had helped remove more than 12 bodies.

The main north-south railway line carves its way through cotton fields in this part of southern Pakistan. Hours after the crash bloodied bodies lay on the ground, shrouded in white sheets. A man searching for a friend or relative went from body to body lifting up the sheets. Mangled metal and wood as well as pieces of luggage littered the tracks. One man, who appeared to be in shock, sat bandaged in the back of an ambulance with his three children. His dead wife lay next to them.