At least 74 people were killed and dozens injured after cooking gas cylinders exploded on a train packed with pilgrims in Pakistan on Thursday, some dying after leaping from carriages to escape the inferno, authorities said.
Television footage showed flames pouring out of three carriages as people could be heard crying during the incident, in a rural area of central Punjab province.
Some of the passengers - many of whom were pilgrims travelling to one of Pakistan's biggest religious gatherings - had been cooking breakfast when two of their gas cylinders exploded, Ali Nawaz, a senior Pakistan Railways official, told AFP.
Many Pakistanis carry food on long train journeys, but gas cylinders are supposedly banned.
Pakistan's railways minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed later told reporters that it had been a "mistake" to allow the cylinders on board
"Terrible... train tragedy with gas cylinder carried by passenger exploding," tweeted human rights minister Shireen Mazari.
Local media reported that some of the passengers had been cooking breakfast when the cylinder exploded.
Ms Mazari said the train was the Tezgam, one of Pakistan's oldest and most popular train services, which runs between the garrison city of Rawalpindi, adjacent to Islamabad, and the southern port city of Karachi.
Dozens of people could be seen crowded onto the tracks staring at the three burning carriages, which had been disconnected from the rest of the train, television images showed.
Train accidents are common in Pakistan, where the railways have seen decades of decline due to corruption, mismanagement and lack of investment.
In July, at least 23 people were killed in the same district when a passenger train coming from the eastern city of Lahore rammed into a goods train that had stopped at a crossing.
Accidents often happen at unmanned crossings, which frequently lack barriers and sometimes signals.
Prime Minister Imran Khan was elected last year on promises to build an Islamic welfare state but an ongoing economic slowdown and austerity measures have hampered efforts to invest in infrastructure and social programmes.
Rural Punjab has witnessed several gruesome accidents over the years, including an oil tanker explosion in 2017 when more than 200 people were killed after the truck crashed on the main highway in central Punjab province while carrying some 50,000 litres of fuel from Karachi to Lahore.
It exploded minutes later, sending a fireball through crowds from a nearby village who had gathered to scavenge for the spilt fuel, despite warnings by the driver and police to stay away.
