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Ninety die in fuel tanker crash in Iran
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-06-26 00:24
A gasoline truck exploded after smashing into a bus in southeast Iran late
Thursday, killing 90 people and injuring more than 100, officials said Friday.
"The disaster is so grave we cannot identify faces and cannot differentiate
between corpses," Haidar Ali Nourai, governor of the southeastern city of
Zahedan, told state television.
The burnt out bus
is seen in this video still image.
[Reuters] |
He said the accident happened
when the truck lost control and plowed into a bus waiting at Nosratabad police
checkpoint. The fireball then enveloped five other buses.
Television showed bodies charred beyond recognition. A gold watch was seen
stuck to an arm scorched to the bone.
Red Crescent spokesman Mehran Nourbakhsh said 90 people had died in the blast
and 114 had been injured. The aid group has sent 40 workers to the scene.
Zahedan parliamentarian Hossein Ali Shahriari said the checkpoint was badly
positioned on a sharp bend.
"Inspections at this checkpoint use stone-age methods," he told the ISNA
student new agency. "We always see lots of buses and cars caught in queues at
this road block."
Iran has one of the highest road accident rates in the world, averaging five
deaths every two hours.
Nosratabad lies on the road from Zahedan to Bam, which was hit by an
earthquake last year that killed more than 20,000 people.
Zahedan is about 30 km (20 miles) from the Pakistan border as the crow flies.
The road is dotted with checkpoints because it is the main route for drugs
smugglers taking opiates from Afghanistan and Pakistan to the West.
Around 300 people were killed and 450 injured in February when a train laden
with gasoline and fertilizer exploded in the northeast of the country after
derailing.
The force of the blast near Nishapur razed village homes to the ground,
crushing people under crumbled mud brick walls.
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