Nightmare for passengers in Pakistan rail crash

"We saw several coaches skidded off the track and there were bodies lying scattered across the railway yard," said Mohammad Ahmed at the scene of Pakistan's rail disaster Wednesday, which left up to 150 people dead.

"As the people in our train were screaming and shouting, there was another deafening explosion," Ahmed said. "The situation was so tragic that one cannot explain."

Day dawned on a panorama of twisted green, red and white striped train carriages lying on top of each other at impossible angles, or crushed together like rusted tin cans.

What had happened was a grisly pile-up unprecedented even on Pakistan's ageing rail network.

At 4:00 am (2300 GMT) on Wednesday, Ahmed was one of hundreds of people crammed into the rickety Quetta Express as it underwent repairs at tiny Sarhad station, some seven kilometres from the remote town of Ghotki.

An express travelling from Lahore to Karachi at 120 kilometers an hour rear-ended the Quetta train, derailing a number of carriages onto another track, where a third locomotive ploughed into the wreckage.

Hours after the smash-up, the backs of two trains remained on the tracks -- and in between lay a tangle of ripped metal, train wheels and shattered glass, dotted with pieces of luggage and body parts.

Villagers were the first at the scene, bringing food, tea, water and cold drinks for the victims, followed by soldiers and rescue workers who scrambled over the carnage, looking for survivors.

"Most of the bodies were badly mutiliated," said rescue worker Haider Bakhsh. "They were reduced into pieces of flesh. Many had no limbs."

Passengers sought frantically for their loved ones, and the sounds of the rescue effort were punctuated by wailing and cries.

"People are crying, fathers are looking for children, husbands for their wives and brothers for their sisters," one witness said.

Ten hours later, women, many of them holding babies, could still be seen weeping by the side of the wreck.

Some of the bodies recovered from the carriages were left at the side of the tracks hidden under white sheets, which passengers would occasionally lift to see if they could identify a family member or friend.