Runaway train cars carrying a lethal mix of fuel and chemicals derailed, caught fire and then exploded hours later Wednesday in northeast Iran, killing more than 200 people, injuring at least 400 and leaving dozens trapped beneath crumbled mud homes.
Most of those reported dead were firefighters and rescue workers who had extinguished the blaze outside Neyshabur, an ancient city of 170,000 people in a farming region 400 miles east of the capital, Tehran.
The dead also included top city officials including Neyshabur's governor, mayor and fire chief as well as the head of the energy department and the director-general of the provincial railways who had all gone to the site of the derailment, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
The explosion devastated five villages...An AP photographer who arrived in Dehnow, one of the severely damaged villages close to the train tracks some 500 yards from the blast, said the village's homes were flattened. Authorities were investigating what caused the 51 cars to roll out of the Abu Muslim train station, outside Neyshabur, at 4 a.m. Forty-eight of the cars derailed on reaching the next stop at Khayyam, about 12 miles away, and caught fire.
Iranian TV showed footage of black plumes of smoke and orange flames billowing into the sky from the cars, 17 of which were loaded with sulfur, six with gasoline, seven with fertilizer and 10 with cotton. Dozens of people, some wearing face masks to protect themselves from the smoke, were seen walking around or putting out flames on the scene.
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040218_2096.html
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