At least 51 children have now been confirmed dead as the death toll from a boat accident in a lake in northwest Pakistan rose in a week.
The military said on Tuesday that the wooden boat involved in the accident was transporting children and teachers from the seminary to a picnic.
Earlier Sunday, police said at least 10 students drowned after the large wooden boat they were in capsized at the Tanda Dam in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Then they said that there were 25 people on the ship.
However, officials later said the boat was overcrowded and was actually carrying 57 people, mostly children, and at least 51 people died.
Kohat District Police Chief Kismat Khan said authorities have handed over the victims’ bodies for burial, but police are still investigating.
The military said in a statement that divers from the army and local emergency services rescued five survivors. The report says that the search for the remaining man continues.
Khan said the casualties could have been avoided if the owner of the boat, who also died in the incident, had provided the picnic participants with life jackets. Khan said divers from the army and local emergency services were searching for the missing boatmen after Sunday’s accident.
Hundreds of relatives and family members of missing children and their teachers waited near the news lake.
“Whenever the divers came back with the bodies, we heard the screams of the relatives of these children,” he said. Footage and photographs provided by the military show divers returning in boats with at least three children, who were rescued and later taken to a nearby hospital. They were among the five survivors and were listed in stable condition.
On Tuesday, the body of the owner of the boat, Sajid Dean, was found.
Such accidents are not uncommon in Pakistan, where rickety wooden boats are often used to transport goods and people across rivers and lakes. Most work without life jackets.
