World

Bus-fuel truck collision kills at least nine in Iran

Accident near Zahedan second mass casualty road incident within days in country after 10 died in Lorestan

By AFP & Web Desk

December 23, 2024

Rescuers work at the scene of a bus accident at Yazd province, Iran, in this still image taken from a video, August 21, 2024. — Reuters

TEHRAN: A bus collided with a fuel truck in Iran's southeast on Monday killing at least nine people, state media reported.

This is the second mass casualty road accident within days in the country.

"Nine people lost their lives and 13 others were injured in the accident in which a bus collided with a fuel truck near Zahedan," head of the Red Crescent Society in Sistan-Baluchestan province Mohammad Mehdi Sajjadi, told the official IRNA news agency.

On Saturday, 10 people were killed when a bus plunged into a ravine in Iran's western Lorestan province.

Iran has a poor road safety record, with more than 20,000 deaths in accidents recorded between March 2023 and March 2024, according to figures from the judiciary's Forensic Medicine Organisation cited by local media.

In August, 28 Pakistani Muslim pilgrims en route to Iraq were killed when their bus crashed in central Iran.

Impoverished Sistan-Baluchestan, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, saw one of Iran's deadliest accidents in 2004, when a gasoline tanker collided with a bus, sparking a massive fire that killed more than 70 people.