
Escalator installed at Lahore railway station
Pakistan Railways has launched a phased project to install escalators at key stations including Lahore, Karachi, and Multan, at a total cost of Rs120 million. According to the Railways minister, escalators at Lahore Railways Station will be operational from June 25.
In the first phase, work is underway at Lahore Railways Station, where escalators are being installed on platforms 2 and 4 at a cost of Rs60 million. The installation is nearly complete.
Established in 1859 during the British era, Lahore Railways Station serves hundreds of thousands of passengers daily. In the absence of escalators, elderly passengers, women and children often struggled with stairs while carrying luggage. Given the hardship faced by the railway commuters, the administration decided to install escalators which will be operational soon.
As many as 50 million passengers travel in trains annually. The railways administration said after Lahore, the escalators will be installed phase-wise at Karachi, Multan, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and other stations.
It has estimated the total cost at Rs120 million. Work for installation of escalators at Karachi Railways Station will also be started this month. Besides, the administration is also constructing comfortable waiting areas for passengers.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Business Recorder
3 hours ago
- Business Recorder
Death toll in India plane crash rises to at least 279
AHMEDABAD: The death toll from the fiery crash of a London-bound passenger jet in an Indian city climbed to 279 on Saturday as officials sought to match the DNA of victims with their grieving relatives. The Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner issued a mayday call shortly before it crashed around lunchtime on Thursday, bursting into a fireball as it hit residential buildings. A police source said on Saturday that 279 bodies had been found at the crash site in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad, making it one of the worst plane disasters of the 21st century. 'Nobody can fill the void left by loss,' said Imtiyaz Ali, whose younger brother boarded the plane. 'I can't even begin to explain what's going on inside me,' he told AFP. There was just one survivor out of 242 passengers and crew on board the jet when it crashed, leaving the tailpiece of the aircraft jutting out of a hostel for medical staff. Air India Dreamliner crashes into Ahmedabad college hostel, kills over 290 Emergency services kept up their recovery efforts on Saturday, extracting a badly burnt body from the tailpiece before cranes were used to remove the wreckage. At least 38 people were killed on the ground. 'I saw my child for the first time in two years, it was a great time,' said Anil Patel, whose son and daughter-in-law had surprised him with a visit before boarding the Air India flight. 'And now, there is nothing,' he said, breaking down in tears. 'Whatever the gods wanted has happened.' Search for black box Distraught relatives of passengers have been providing DNA samples in Ahmedabad, with some having to fly to India to help with the process. The first body of a passenger to be handed over to relatives was placed in a white coffin on Saturday before being transported in an ambulance with a police escort, footage from the state government showed. Air India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese and a Canadian on board the flight, as well as 12 crew members. The official casualty number will not be finalised until the slow process of DNA identification is completed. Those killed ranged from a top politician to a teenage tea seller. The lone survivor, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, said even he could not explain how he survived. 'Initially, I too thought that I was about to die, but then I opened my eyes and realised that I was still alive,' Ramesh, a British citizen, told national broadcaster DD News from his hospital bed. Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said on Friday that a flight data recorder, or black box, had been recovered, saying it would 'significantly aid' investigations. Forensic teams are still looking for the second black box as they probe why the plane lost height and crashed straight after takeoff. The aviation minister said on Saturday that authorities 'felt the need to do an extended surveillance of the Boeing 787 planes', with eight out of Air India's 34 Dreamliners inspected so far. Officials will take 'whatever necessary steps are needed' to determine the cause of the disaster as soon as possible, he said. The US planemaker said it was in touch with Air India and stood 'ready to support them' over the incident. A source close to the case said it was the first 787 Dreamliner crash.


Express Tribune
a day ago
- Express Tribune
265 perish in India's worst air disaster
The tail of Air India flight 171 is pictured at the site after it crashed in a residential area near the airport in Ahmedabad. Photo: AFP Listen to article A London-bound passenger jet crashed in a residential area in the Indian city of Ahmedabad on Thursday, killing at least 265 people on board and on the ground — but one passenger is believed to have survived. An AFP journalist saw bodies being recovered from the crash site, and the back of the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner — which had 242 passengers and crew on board— hanging over the edge of a building it hit around lunchtime. The government opened a formal investigation into the cause of the crash, and rescue teams worked into Friday morning scouring the charred wreckage with sniffer dogs. "The tragedy in Ahmedabad has stunned and saddened us," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said after Air India's flight 171 crashed following takeoff. "It is heartbreaking beyond words". Deputy Commissioner of Police Kanan Desai told reporters said that "265 bodies have reached the hospital". That suggests that at least 24 people died when the jet ploughed into a medical staff hostel in a blazing fireball — and that the toll may rise further as more bodies are located. But while everyone aboard the flight was initially feared killed, state health official Dhananjay Dwivedi told AFP "one survivor is confirmed" and had been hospitalised. The AFP journalist saw a building ablaze after the crash, with thick black smoke billowing into the air, and a section of the plane on the ground. "One half of the plane crashed into the residential building where doctors lived with their families," said Krishna, a doctor who did not give his full name. "The nose and front wheel landed on the canteen building where students were having lunch," he said. Krishna said he saw "about 15 to 20 burnt bodies", while he and his colleagues rescued around 15 students. India's civil aviation authority said two pilots and 10 cabin crew were among the 242 people on board. Air India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese, and a Canadian on board the flight bound for London's Gatwick airport. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the scenes from the crash were "devastating", while the country's King Charles III said he was "desperately shocked". The survivor is believed to be 40-year-old Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, one of the British passengers. India's Home Minister Amit Shah told reporters he had heard the "good news of the survivor" and was speaking to them "after meeting him". The BBC and Britain's Press Association news agency spoke to the reported survivor's family members. "He said, I have no idea how I exited the plane", his brother Nayan Kumar Ramesh, 27, told PA in the British city of Leicester. The plane issued a mayday call and "crashed immediately after takeoff", the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said. Ahmedabad, the main city of India's Gujarat state, is home to around eight million people and the busy airport is surrounded by densely packed residential areas. "When we reached the spot, there were several bodies lying around and firefighters were dousing the flames," resident Poonam Patni told AFP. "Many of the bodies were burned," she said. The AFP journalist saw medics using a cart to load bodies into an ambulance, while a charred metal bed frame stood surrounded by burnt wreckage. US planemaker Boeing said it was in touch with Air India and stood "ready to support them" over the incident, which a source close to the case said was the first crash for a 787 Dreamliner. The UK and US air accident investigation agencies announced they were dispatching teams to support their Indian counterparts. Tata Group, owners of Air India, offered financial aid of 10 million rupees ($117,000) to "the families of each person who has lost their life in this tragedy", as well as funds to cover medical expenses of those injured. India has suffered a series of fatal air crashes, including a 1996 disaster when two jets collided mid-air over New Delhi, killing nearly 350 people. In 2010, an Air India Express jet crashed and burst into flames at Mangalore airport in southwest India, killing 158 of the 166 passengers and crew on board. Experts said it was too early to speculate on what may have caused Thursday's crash. "It is very unlikely that the plane was overweight or carrying too much fuel," said Jason Knight, senior lecturer in fluid mechanics at the University of Portsmouth. "The aircraft is designed to be able to fly on one engine, so the most likely cause of the crash is a double engine failure. The most likely cause of a double engine failure is a bird strike." India's airline industry has boomed in recent years with Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), last month calling it "nothing short of phenomenal". The growth of its economy has made India and its 1.4 billion people the world's fourth-largest air marketdomestic and international — with IATA projecting it will become the third biggest within the decade.


Business Recorder
2 days ago
- Business Recorder
Air India Dreamliner crashes into Ahmedabad college hostel, kills over 290
AHMEDABAD: More than 290 people were killed when an Air India plane bound for London with 242 people on board crashed minutes after taking off from the western city of Ahmedabad on Thursday, authorities said, in the world's worst aviation disaster in a decade. The dead included people on the ground as the aircraft - headed for Gatwick Airport, south of the British capital - crashed on to a medical college hostel during lunch hour. At least one passenger is known to have survived, police said, and the man told Indian media how he had heard a loud noise shortly after take-off. 'Approximately 294 have died. This includes some students as the plane crashed on the building where they were staying,' Vidhi Chaudhary, a top state police officer, told Reuters. She said police found one survivor who was in seat 11A, next to an emergency exit, adding that there could be more survivors in hospital. 'Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed,' 40-year-old Ramesh Viswashkumar told the Hindustan Times, which showed a boarding pass for seat 11A in that name online. Five Indian aircraft shot down 'It all happened so quickly,' he told the paper from his hospital bed. 'When I got up, there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran. There were pieces of the plane all around me,' he said. 'Someone grabbed hold of me and put me in an ambulance and brought me to the hospital.' He said that his brother, Ajay, was seated in a different row on the plane. 'He was travelling with me and I can't find him anymore. Please help me find him,' he said. Ahmedabad police chief G.S. Malik said the bodies recovered could include both passengers and people killed on the ground. The dead included Vijay Rupani, the former chief minister of Gujarat state, of which Ahmedabad is the main city. Relatives had been asked to give DNA samples to identify the dead, state health secretary Dhananjay Dwivedi told reporters. Boeing shares fall 8% after Air India plane crashes Parts of the plane's body were scattered around the smouldering building into which it crashed. The tail of the plane was stuck on top of the building. The passengers included 217 adults, 11 children and two infants, a source told Reuters. Air India said 169 were Indian nationals, 53 were Britons, seven Portuguese, and one Canadian. Aviation tracking site Flightradar24 said the plane was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, one of the most modern passenger aircraft in service. It was the first crash for the Dreamliner, which began flying commercially in 2011, according to the Aviation Safety Network database. The plane that crashed on Thursday flew for the first time in 2013 and was delivered to Air India in January 2014, Flightradar24 said. Crash just after take-off Thursday's crash occurred just after the plane took off. TV channels showed the plane taking off over a residential area and then disappearing from the screen before a huge fireball could be seen rising into the sky from beyond the houses. 'My sister-in-law was going to London. Within an hour, I got news that the plane had crashed,' Poonam Patel, a relative of one of the passengers, told news agency ANI at the government hospital in Ahmedabad. Ramila, the mother of a student at the medical college, told ANI her son had gone to the hostel for his lunch break when the plane crashed. 'My son is safe, and I have spoken to him. He jumped from the second floor, so he suffered some injuries,' she said. According to air traffic control at Ahmedabad Airport, the aircraft departed at 1:39 p.m. (0809 GMT). It gave a Mayday call, signalling an emergency, but thereafter there was no response from the aircraft. U.S. aerospace safety consultant Anthony Brickhouse said one problematic sign from videos of the aircraft was that the landing gear was down at a phase of flight when it would typically be up. 'If you didn't know what was happening, you would think that plane was on approach to a runway,' Brickhouse said. Boeing said it was in contact with Air India and working to gather more information. Boeing shares fell 5% as the crash posed a major setback for the planemaker as its new CEO looks to rebuild trust following a series of safety and production challenges. Aircraft engine-maker GE Aerospace said that it would put a team together to go to India and analyse cockpit data, India's CNBC TV18 reported. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said it would lead a team of U.S. investigators travelling to India to help in the investigation. Britain was working with Indian authorities to urgently establish the facts around the crash and to provide support to those involved, the country's foreign office said. 'The tragedy in Ahmedabad has stunned and saddened us,' Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X. 'It is heartbreaking beyond words.' Gujarat is Modi's home state. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said images emerging of the crash were 'devastating'. A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said King Charles was also being kept updated. India's first crash since 2020 Ahmedabad Airport, which suspended all flight operations after the crash, said it was operational again but with limited flights. The airport is operated by India's Adani Group conglomerate. The last fatal plane crash in India, the world's third largest aviation market and its fastest growing, was in 2020 and involved Air India Express, the airline's low-cost arm. The airline's Boeing-737 overshot a 'table-top' runway in southern India, skidded and plunged into a valley, crashing nose-first into the ground and killing 21 people. The formerly state-owned Air India was taken over by Indian conglomerate Tata Group in 2022, and merged with Vistara – a joint venture between the group and Singapore Airlines – in 2024.