Iran passenger train carriages erupt in flames in deadly crash

Two trains collided and caught fire on Friday in a remote region of northern Iran, killing 44 people and injuring dozens more, in one of the country's worst rail disasters.

Provincial governor Mohammad Reza Khabbaz told state television that the crash took place in Semnan province on the main line between Tehran and Iran's second city Mashhad.

An express train operating from Tabriz in the northwest to Mashhad had stopped, Khabbaz said, initially suggesting the cause could have been mechanical failure or extreme cold, although it was later put down to human error.

Two coaches on the express burst into flames when a passenger train behind smashed into the back of it at 7:50 am (0420 GMT).

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.

The Fars news agency said 100 passengers had been rescued.

State television showed footage of four derailed carriages, with two of them on fire. A spokesman for Iran's Red Crescent, Mostafa Mortazavi, told Fars that firefighters were trying to control the blaze.

"The accident happened when a passenger train in motion crashed to another one that had stopped at the station," it said.

The cause of the collision was under investigation, it said, adding that rescue teams have been dispatched to the site of accident.

"We can have a better idea about number of casualties after the fire is put out," Ahmadi said, Mehr reported.

The crash occurred at the Haft-Khan station in the city of Shahroud, about 400km east of Tehran.

A local official told state TV that the remote location of the train station had slowed down rescue efforts.

"So far only one helicopter has reached the scene because of access difficulties," said local head of the Red Crescent Hasan Shokrollahi.