ISLAMABAD 

At least 18 people, including two women and three children, were killed and two others injured in a road mishap in northwestern Pakistan, a police official said on Friday.

A passenger van going from Lakki Marwat city to Peshawar, the provincial capital of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, collided head-on with a truck on the Indus Highway near the Kohat Tunnel toll plaza on Thursday evening, Kohat Police spokesman Fazal Naeem told local media.

Police and emergency personnel arrived at the scene of the accident and shifted the dead and injured to a hospital in Kohat, from where the victims' relatives transported them to their respective areas, primarily Lakki Marwat, he added.

The majority of the bodies were beyond recognition due to the severity of the accident, which appeared to be caused by the truck's brake failure, he said, adding that the truck driver was apprehended.