The front four coaches of the second train — running from Semnan to Mashhad — derailed and overturned. “One minute I was sleeping and the next I was being carried out of a coach on fire,” one hospitalised passenger told state television.
Television broadcast images of a huge column of black smoke and flames shooting into the sky from coaches with their windows shattered, as firefighters battled the blaze and rescue workers searched for victims.
With the toll climbing throughout the day, Hossein Kulivand, head of Iran’s emergency services, said late Friday that 44 people were killed and 82 hospitalised, of whom 17 were treated for light injuries and released.
Human error was determined to have caused the accident. “For some unknown reasons due to human fault, the train (from Semnan) was ordered to move and so it hit the other train from behind,” said Mohsen Poor-Seyed Aghaie, the head of Iranian railways.
