At least 15 people have been killed following the accident near Nawabshah, the country’s railways minister says.

“This is quite a big accident. Rescue teams have reached on site and at least 15 passengers were killed and 45 injured,” Khawaja Saad Rafique told reporters on Sunday, adding that “more rescue teams have been dispatched to the site”.

“It would be premature to talk about the cause of the accident, which could be a mechanical fault or an act of terrorism,” Rafique said.

About 50 people have been injured in the accident, Muqarrab Khan, a local police officer from the Sanghar district of Sindh, told the dpa news agency.

Mohsin Syal, a railway official, earlier told HUM News channel that eight coaches of the Hazara Express, which was travelling from Karachi to Abbottabad, derailed near Sahara railway station in Nawabshah, about 275km (170 miles) from Karachi, the capital of Sindh province.

Ijaz Shah, a provincial railway official, told the AFP news agency that several passengers were killed and many others injured in the accident, without providing an exact casualty figure.

Images posted to local media show dozens of people at the site, with some smashing windows to help passengers clamber out of the twisted carriages and at least one coach overturned.

Accidents and derailments occur frequently on Pakistan’s antiquated railway system.

In June 2021, two trains collided near Daharki in Sindh killing at least 65 people and injuring about 150 others.

In that accident, an express derailed onto the opposite track, and a second passenger train crashed into the wreckage roughly a minute later.

At least 75 passengers were burned to death in a fire on board the Tezgam express train in October 2019, while a two-train collision at Ghotki killed more than 100 people in 2005.