Three trains collided in a deadly chain-reaction after a conductor misread a signal in southern Pakistan early Wednesday, killing at least 107 people and injuring hundreds more in the country’s worst crash in more than a decade.

The nighttime accident left metal, glass and bodies strewn across a remote railway station near Ghotki. Rescuers cut through twisted metal to reach survivors, as ambulances and buses streamed in to ferry the injured to nearby hospitals.

The national crisis manager at the Interior Ministry, Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema, ruled out sabotage, saying the crash was "a pure accident." He declined to give a death toll, saying only that "a lot of people have died."

"Rescue workers have started to pull the dead and injured out. There were many people inside and there are a lot of casualties," the local police chief, Agha Mohammed Tahir, told the Associated Press.

Abdul Wahab Awan, general manager of Pakistan Railways, said officials on the scene told him more than 100 people were dead, and hundreds more injured. He blamed the conductor of the night-coach Karachi Express for misreading a signal and rear-ending another passenger train. "The crash occurred because of misreading of a signal by the driver of Karachi Express and it rammed the Quetta Express, which was not moving," Mr Awan told AP.

Ghulam Mohammed Muhtarim, the home secretary of Sindh province, said 104 bodies had been pulled from the wreckage, and at least three were still inside the trains. More than 100 people with serious injuries were admitted to hospitals, and scores more were treated at the scene, he said.

The accident happened about 0400 local time near Ghotki, some 600 kilometers (370 miles) northeast of Karachi, in remote Sindh province. The initial collision derailed at least three carriages onto another track where they were struck by the third train, causing further derailment, said Abdul Aziz, a senior controller at Pakistan Railways. In all, some 13 cars derailed.

Survivors described awaking to the horror while being thrown from beds and seats. "We were sleeping and we woke up to a huge bang," said Suraya, a 22-year-old woman who like many Pakistanis goes by just one name. "I fell down to the floor. Then I heard the screams."

Khuda Bakhsh Larak, 50, who was in the Quetta Express and suffered head injuries and a broken leg, said: "Our train was standing still when it was hit from the rear. Our car jumped and flipped on its side."

Naveed Zubairi, a cameraman with Associated Press Television News who happened to be traveling on the Karachi Express with his family, described a scene of confusion following the collision. "My children were crying in the darkness. Then I made some light with my mobile phone to look around. There were injured people nearby," he said. "I went out of the carriage. Four carriages of another train on an adjacent track had fallen on one side and people in them were shouting for help. They were breaking windows to get out."

Some 30 bodies and more than 100 injured people were taken to the Civil Hospital in the nearby town of Sukkur, said Iqbal Ahmed, a doctor there. He said at least 12 people were in critical condition, some with lost limbs or serious head injuries.

The Quetta Express was traveling from the eastern city of Lahore to the southwestern city of Quetta when it developed a technical problem and stopped at the station. Technicians were working on the train when the Karachi Express, headed from Lahore to the southern port city of Karachi, crashed into it. The impact pushed three carriages onto an adjacent track, and they in turn were hit by the Tezgam Express, heading from Karachi north to Rawalpindi.

Pakistan’s railways are antiquated, and there have been many accidents in recent years, including several at Ghotki, blamed often on faulty equipment or human error. A train carrying 800 passengers from Karachi to Lahore slammed into a parked freight train at Ghotki on June 8, 1991, killing more than 100 people. Authorities blamed staff negligence for that accident. In December 1989, a train crash near Sangi, a town 60 kilometers (35 miles) from Ghotki, killed 400 people. More recently, five people were killed and 25 injured when a passenger train derailed in eastern Punjab province on March 5. On September 20, 2003, a train crashed into a packed bus in central Pakistan, killing at least 27 people and injuring six others.

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