More than 200 people were killed and 350 others injured on Wednesday when runaway rail wagons loaded with sulphur, petrol and fertiliser derailed and exploded in northeast Iran.
| Gee, golly. All the components of a fertilizer bomb, coincidentally on one train. Wonder where it was bound? |
âFive villages were destroyed. The number of the people killed in this incident is more than 200,â the head of disasters in Khorassan province, Vahid Barakchi, was quoted as saying. The level of this is massive and beyond our preliminary assessments. Our rescue workers workers are trying to remove more than 350 injured people to hospitals in Mashhad and Neyshabour.â
| Kinda like the mother of all car booms, huh? |
âThe explosion happened at a time when the firefighters and the rescue workers were trying to put out the fire,â the official said. âA number of the firefighters and local villagers were killed in the explosion.â The massive blast occurred at Khayyam station, near the town of Neyshabour, and was heard in the provincial capital of Mashhad, some 75 kilometres away near the borders with Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. Local officials said the rail wagons, which were parked in a nearby station, began rolling away in the early hours of the morning. The wagons then derailed and a fire began with several explosions reported, drawing firefighters and curious onlookers to the scene.
| "Hey, Ardashir! There's a whole trainload of explosives on fire down at the station. Let's go watch!" |
Television pictures showed smashed, blackened and burning tank wagons and other rolling stock piled up on the tracks as firemen played hoses on the wreckage. When the major explosion occurred at around 9:45 am, the Seismological unit of Tehran University recorded an earth tremor measuring 3.6 on the Richter scale in the same area â possibly a reading sparked by the force of the blast.
Officials have not ruled out the danger of further explosions.
| ... or of people turning into pillars of salt. |
Hossein Zaresefat, the deputy governor general of Khorassan province in charge of security, told AFP by telephone that at least two local officials had been killed in the blast. They were the governor of Neyshabour city, Mojtaba Farahmand, and the local electricity chief Morteza Fahrian. âI have also heard some other local officials have been burned to death,â he added.
| I didn't really believe in signs and portents until I started reading up on Iran. |
More, from London Times, courtesy of Dan...
Runaway fuel wagons blew up in northeast Iran today, killing scores of people in a huge explosion that destroyed homes along the tracks.
| "Runaway"? What were they running away from? |
Estimates of the death toll ranged from 60 to more than 200, with hundreds injured. The state news agency IRNA said the 51 runaway wagons, laden with petrol, fertiliser and sulphur products, were set loose by earth tremors.
| The Khaleej Times version says the "earthquake" was the boom... |
IRNA said the governor general of Nishapur was killed in the blast along with the head of the cityâs electricity board and the fire chief. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, offered Britainâs condolences to Iran. âMany people appear to have been killed and many more appear to have been injured,â he said. âThis is a terrible accident on top of the catastrophe of the earthquake in Bam.â
| "God is really cheezed at you guys, isn't He?" |
Mr Straw said he had already booked a telephone call to his Iranian counterpart, Kamal Kharrazi, to express sympathy for the loss of life and injury.
| "Mr. Kharazzi, please. This is Mr. Straw... He can't come to the phone now?... Carried off by banshees, was he?... Hmmm... I guess I should express my condolences for that, too..." |
Iranian television showed flames licking from mangled, charred train wagons, with thick black smoke billowing into the sky. Grinning youths scampered around the wreckage despite a warning from emergency teams, quoted by television, that three more wagons were about to explode. "The number of those killed in this disaster is now more than 200," Vahid Barkchi, an emergency official in the northeastern province of Khorasan, told IRNA. "The emergency team is transferring more than 350 injured to hospitals nearby." IRNA said five villages were seriously damaged in the blast which state radio said had killed at least 60 people. State television put the toll at more than 100. Television showed village houses close to the railway track, strewn with overturned carriages. Fire crews had rushed to the scene to fight a smaller initial blaze when the wagons blew up in a giant explosion 20 km from the city of Nishapur, shattering windows within a radius of more than 10 km. Mr Barkchi said the dead included firefighters and local villagers.
Al-Jizz puts the dead at just under 300...
At least 295 people were killed on Wednesday afternoon in northeast Iran when runaway rail wagons loaded with sulphur, petrol and fertilizer derailed and blew up. A local official, who asked not to be named, gave the revised figure to journalists who had earlier put the toll at around 200. And Neyshabour chief coroner Mehran Bakili warned: "The magnitude of the explosion means that identifying the bodies will be a very slow process."
The head of disaster relief in Khorassan province, Vahid Barakchi, was quoted as saying by the IRNA news agency that five villages were destroyed. "The level of this is massive and beyond our preliminary assessments,' he said. |