Tehran _ Agencies
A tanker truck transporting fuel on a bus in central Iran was killed overnight in the city of Tehran, the state television reported.
According to the public news channel, the incident occurred at around 23:15 (18, 45 GMT Monday) on the highway between Kashan and Natanz, more than 200 kilometers south of Tehran.
Preliminary elements of the investigation indicate that the truck collided with the bus, which was carrying 47 people before it was flipped and caught fire, according to General Mohamed Hussein Hamidi, commander of the national Traffic police.
He added that the incident resulted in injuries, which were not reported, explaining that they had been taken to nearby hospitals.
Iran records one of the highest death rates in traffic accidents in the world.
On July July, an incident between a tanker truck and a bus killed eleven people in the west of the country´s Kurdistan.
Traffic accidents killed 16,000 and 300 people and injured 336 others in the past Iranian year (March 21, 2017-20 March 2018), deputy health Minister Mohamed Hadi Ayazi, who was quoted by the semi-official Student news Agency (ISNA), said.
This large number is explained by many factors, including the general state of roads and the large automobile fleet, which has been deprived of renovation for years because of economic sanctions, and disregard for the basic traffic rules that the police are trying to combat by publishing harsh images on television or through awareness-raising campaigns.
