55 injured in bus-truck collision in Iran

Tehran: Fifty-five people were injured early on Sunday in a collision between a bus and a truck in northeastern Iran's Khorasan Razavi province, the state media reported.

Shortly after the incident, which occurred on a road between Sabzevar and Neyshabur counties, four ambulance vehicles and medical emergency personnel were sent to the scene, IRNA quoted Gholam-Abbas Kafi, director of the emergency medical services and incidents department of Sabzevar University of Medical Sciences, as saying.

Kafi said 50 injured passengers received first aid on the spot, and the other five were transferred to a hospital in Sabzevar, located 230 km west of the provincial capital Mashhad, Xinhua news agency reported quoting IRNA.

Hossein Mishmast, provincial traffic police commander, said the incident occurred at 5.00 a.m. local time and that the bus was carrying Afghan passengers returning from a pilgrimage to Iraq, according to the report.

Mishmast attributed the cause of the collision to the fatigue and drowsiness of the bus driver, an Afghan national.