By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, (AA): At least 18 people were killed and more than 40 others injured in a collision between two passenger trains near Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi’s Landi Railway Station on Thursday, police and health officials said.

Witnesses described watching in horror as Zakaria Express from Multan rammed into Fareed Express from Lahore, which was parked there, with the roar of the crash swiftly followed by the screams of people trapped inside.

Dr. Seemi Jamali, an official at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center, told Anadolu Agency 18 bodies were brought to her hospital and nearly a dozen injured were in critical condition.

Rescue services have pulled out all trapped passengers after cutting through the mangled wreckage. The injured were shifted to nearby hospitals.

The incident was the second of its kind in less than two months and senior railway official Nasir Nazeer told reporters an investigation had begun.

Last November, 19 people were killed in Baluchistan after a train’s brakes failed and it sped down the side of a mountain.

In July 2015, at least 17 people were killed when a special military train fell into a canal after a bridge partially collapsed.

[Archive Photo: Earlier train collission near Multan on 15 September 2016. Photographer: Usman Khan/AA]