October 22, 2024
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — A passenger train traveling through eastern Iran struck an excavator and derailed nearly half its cars before dawn Wednesday, killing at least 21 people and injuring another 47, officials said.
The train operated by the state-run Islamic Republic Railway carried some 350 people as it traveled from Tabas, some 340 miles southeast of Tehran, to the city of Yazd. The route had began as an overnight train out of Iran's holy city of Mashhad.
Based on images after the crash, it appeared the train's locomotive passed the excavator and the later cars somehow hit the digger and caused the derailment, though authorities did not immediately explain how the disaster happened in the rural scrubland near a railway bridge.
“Passengers were bouncing in the car like balls in the air,” one unnamed injured passenger told Iranian state television.
The state-run IRNA news agency gave the casualty figures, citing emergency officials.
Rescue teams with ambulances and helicopters arrived in the remote area where communication is poor. Over a dozen people suffered critical injuries, with some transferred to local hospitals, officials said.
Aerial footage of the desert site of the disaster showed train cars on their side, with some rescuers running at the scene as they tried to care for those injured.
State TV later aired images from a hospital where the injured received treatment. One of those injured told the broadcaster they felt the train suddenly brake and then slow before the derailment.
The incident happened some 30 miles outside of Tabas.
The report said the crash is under investigation. Initial reports suggested the train collided with an excavator near the track, though it wasn't immediately clear why an excavator would have been close to the train track in the dark. One official suggest it could have been part of a repair project.
Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi offered condolences over the crash and announced an investigation would be undertaken into its causes.
Iran's worst train disaster came in 2004, when a runaway train loaded with gasoline, fertilizer, sulfur and cotton crashed near the historic city of Neyshabur, killing some 320 people, injuring 460 others and damaging five villages. In 2016, a train collision in northern Iran killed at least 43 people and injured about 100.
Iran has some 8,700 miles of railway lines throughout a country about two and a half times the size of Texas. Its rail system sends both people and goods across the country, particularly in rural areas.
