Iran: Train derailment kills at the least 17, injures 50

A passenger practice partially derailed in japanese Iran early Wednesday, killing at the least 17 individuals and injuring 50 extra, together with some critically, authorities stated.

The report stated the variety of casualties may rise, although preliminary particulars concerning the catastrophe involving a practice reportedly carrying some 350 passengers remained unclear.

Four of the seven automobiles within the practice derailed within the early morning darkness close to the desert metropolis of Tabas, Iranian state tv reported. Tabas is a few 550 kilometers southeast of the capital, Tehran.

Rescue groups with ambulances and helicopters had arrived within the distant space the place communication is poor. Over a dozen individuals suffered vital accidents, with some transferred to native hospitals, officers stated.

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Iranian media quoted the governor of Tabas, Ali Akbar Rahimi, as saying the crash killed at the least 17 individuals and that the variety of fatalities might rise as rescuers search the practice automobiles.

Aerial footage of the desert web site of the catastrophe confirmed practice automobiles on their facet, with some rescuers working on the scene as they tried to look after these injured.

State TV later aired photos from a hospital the place the injured obtained therapy. One of these injured advised the broadcaster they felt the practice instantly brake after which gradual earlier than the derailment.

“Passengers were bouncing in the car like balls in the air,” stated the injured passenger, whom state TV didn’t determine.

The derailment occurred some 50 kilometers exterior of Tabas on the rail that hyperlinks town to the central metropolis of Yazd.

The report stated the crash is beneath investigation. Initial studies instructed the practice collided with an excavator close to the monitor, although it wasn’t instantly clear why an excavator would have been near the practice monitor at evening. One official recommend it may have been a part of a restore challenge.

Iran’s worst practice catastrophe got here in 2004, when a runaway practice loaded with gasoline, fertilizer, sulfur and cotton crashed close to the historic metropolis of Neyshabur, killing some 320 individuals, injuring 460 others and damaging 5 villages. Another practice crash in 2016 killed dozens and accidents of scores of individuals.

Iran has some 14,000 kilometers of railway traces all through a rustic about two and a half occasions the scale of Texas. Its rail system sends each individuals and items throughout the nation, notably in rural areas.

Iran additionally has some 17,000 annual deaths on its highways, one of many world’s worst site visitors security data. The excessive toll is blamed on large disregard for site visitors legal guidelines, unsafe automobiles and insufficient emergency companies.

Iran, already straining beneath US sanctions over its collapsed nuclear deal, has been mourning the deaths of at the least 41 individuals killed in a constructing collapse within the nation’s southwest.