ANKARA (Reuters) - Forty-four people were killed and 103 injured when one Iranian passenger train collided with another at a station about 150 miles (250 km) east of the capital Tehran, state media reported.

“I was sleeping when the crash happened. I thought it was an air strike ... When I opened my eyes, there was blood everywhere,” a hospitalized passenger told state television.

State television footage showed four derailed carriages, two of them on fire and a spokesman for Iran’s Red Crescent, Mostafa Mortazavi, told the semi-official Fars news agency that firefighters were trying to control the blaze.

Senior Health Ministry official later announced via Tasnim news agency that rescue operations had been completed and the final death toll was 44. An investigation into the cause of the crash in the northern province of Semnan was continuing.

Semnan provincial governor Mohammad Reza Khabbaz told Iranian television it appeared that a train entering the Haft-Khan station on the outskirts of Shahroud plowed into another that had broken down there.

“The initial investigation suggests that a mechanical failure, possibly caused by cold weather, forced the express train, operating between the cities of Tabriz and Mashhad, to stop (at Haft-Khan),” Khabbaz said.

Tabriz state governor Rahim Shohratifar told Tasnim that the moving train had 400 passengers. It was not clear how many passengers were on the stationary train. Fars earlier reported that 100 passengers had been rescued.

Semi-official Mehr news agency said four of the dead were railway employees aboard the trains.

Iran’s rail network aged badly under economic sanctions imposed over its disputed nuclear program, making it difficult to modernize rolling stock, and safety standards suffered.

The sanctions were lifted in January after Iran reached a deal with world powers to limit its nuclear activity.</s>Iran: Death toll in train collision rises to 43

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — A train collision in northern Iran killed at least 43 people and injured 100 on Friday, Iran's state media reported.

The official IRNA news agency quoted Mostafa Mortazavi, a spokesman for the country's Red Crescent, as saying the latest casualty figures had risen to 43 killed and 100 injured in the accident that occurred in sub-zero temperatures when a moving passenger train struck another parked at Haftkhan station about 250 kilometers (150 miles) east of the capital Tehran.

The report said four of the fatalities were railway employees who were onboard the two trains when the accident occurred, near the city of Semnan.

This picture released by Iranian Fars News Agency shows the scene of two trains collision about 150 miles (250 kilometers) east of the capital Tehran, Iran, Friday, Nov. 25, 2016. An Iranian official has told state TV that the death toll from a train collision in the country's north has increased to 31. The provincial governor, Mohammad Reza Khabbaz, says that so far 31 bodies have been found at the site of the crash on Friday morning. (Saeed Esmaeilpour, Fars News Agency via AP)

The report said that in the collision, four carriages derailed and two caught fire. It showed footage of rescue teams working near the carriages on fire. The casualties from the crash were taken to nearby hospitals.

Initial reports had put the death toll at eight but the provincial governor, Mohammad Reza Khabbaz, later told state TV that more bodies were recovered at the scene of the crash.

Khabbaz said the cause of the accident was under investigation and that the parked train was apparently not inside the station but on a main rail line at the time of the collision.

The IRNA report said the 100 people who were injured in the collision were all in hospital. It said many of them had only sustained minor injuries.

Earlier, Ali Asghar Ahmadi, head of Iran's Red Crescent, told state TV that the death toll may raise further, based on unconfirmed reports from the site.

Helicopters and ambulances were sent to join the rescue operation, Ahmadi added.

Later on the day, President Hassan Rouhani issued a statement offering his condolences to the victims' families and assigned senior vice-president Eshagh Janahgiri to lead an investigation and identify those responsible for the incident.

Meanwhile, the minister for roads and urban development, Abbas Akhoundi, postponed his visit to Turkmenistan to visit the site of the accident.

A parliament representative for the region, Gholam Reza Kateb, hinted that the head of the Semnan train station may have mistakenly allowed the train to proceed prematurely.

Iran reports about 17,000 deaths on average in traffic accidents every year. The high accident rate is mostly blamed on drivers disregarding traffic laws, old vehicles and inadequate emergency services.

Years of punitive international sanctions against Iran over its controversial nuclear program have also badly affected Iran's infrastructures, including roads and the railway network.</s>In the country's deadliest rail disaster, 328 people were killed when a train transporting sulphur, petrol and fertilisers exploded in northern Iran on February 18, 2004.

The injured were airlifted to hospitals in Semnan and Damghan.

Two coaches on the express train burst into flames.

Two trains collided and caught fire 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 local time.

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.

Television broadcast images of a huge column of black smoke and flames shooting into the sky from coaches with their windows shattered, as firefighters battled the blaze and rescue workers searched for victims.

With the toll climbing throughout the day, Hossein Kulivand, head of Iran's emergency services, said late Friday that 44 people were killed and 82 hospitalised, of whom 17 were treated for light injuries and released.

"For some unknown reasons due to human fault, the train (from Semnan) was ordered to move and so it hit the other train from behind," said Mohsen Poor-Seyed Aghaie, the head of Iranian railways.

The province's Red Crescent director, Hassan Shokrollahi, said the remote location of the crash site, between Semnan and Damghan, the next major town, had complicated rescue efforts.

"Due to the difficulty of access, only our helicopter has managed to reach the scene," he said.

The Tehran-to-Mashhad line was briefly closed to allow an investigation into the cause of the crash, said Sadegh Sokri, spokesman for Iran's railways.

A collision on the same line between a freight train and a passenger train left two dead and 30 injured in June 2014.

President Hassan Rouhani called for "all technical, administrative and preventive measures to be taken to prevent the recurrence of such an accident".

Iranian trains have been involved in four collisions this year with road vehicles, including a crash with a truck in July that left around 30 injured near the Caspian Sea in the northern province of Mazandaran.

Iran's roads are notoriously deadly, mainly because drivers show scant regard for rules, with 16,000 lives lost in the Iranian year between March 2015 and March 2016.</s>At least 40 people were killed and 100 injured when one Iranian passenger train collided with another at a station about 150 miles (250 km) east of the capital Tehran, and the death toll is likely to rise, state television reported.

President Hassan Rouhani ordered an acceleration of rescue efforts as well as an investigation into the cause of the deadly crash in the northern province of Semnan.

Video footage showed four derailed carriages, two of them on fire. A spokesman for Iran’s Red Crescent, Mostafa Mortazavi, told the semi-official Fars news agency that firefighters were trying to control the blaze.

“I was sleeping when the crash happened. I thought it was an air strike ... When I opened my eyes, there was blood everywhere,” a hospitalized passenger said.

Fars quoted Semnan provincial governor Mohammad Reza Khabbaz as saying the death toll was expected to increase. The governor of Tabriz told the semi-official Tasnim news agency that the moving train had 400 passengers on board. It was not clear how many passengers had been on the second train. Fars had earlier said 100 had been rescued.

“Out of the 400 passengers ... 48 are missing. They might be hospitalized or left the area... but there is a high possibility that they were killed,” Rahim Shohratifar told Tasnim.

The semi-official Mehr news agency said four of the dead were railway employees aboard the trains.

Khabbaz told Iranian television it appeared that a train entering the Haft-Khan station on the outskirts of Shahroud plowed into another that had broken down there.

“The initial investigation suggests that a mechanical failure, possibly caused by cold weather, forced the express train, operating between the cities of Tabriz and Mashhad to stop (at Haft-Khan),” Khabbaz said.

A local official told state TV that the remote location of the crash had slowed rescue efforts. “So far only one helicopter has reached the scene because of access difficulties,” said local Red Crescent chief Hasan Shokrollahi.

Iran’s rail network aged badly under economic sanctions imposed over its disputed nuclear program, making it difficult to modernize rolling stock, and safety standards suffered.

The sanctions were lifted in January after Iran reached a deal with world powers to limit its nuclear activity.</s>"The exact number of those killed or injured is still unknown," TV reported, without giving details on the number of passengers in the trains.

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

The crash occurred at the Haft-Khan station in the city of Shahroud, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) east of Tehran.</s>Flames blazed and black smoke poured from at least one train car in the province of Semnan, east of Tehran, video distributed by Reuters and official Iranian news channel IRINN showed.

Eighty-two people were injured, Tasnim reported, citing Pir Hossein Koolivand, the country's director of emergency services. All but 17 had been released from hospitals by Friday evening, Koolivand said.

At least one of the trains had passengers, some of whom were burned by the fire, Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency reported, citing Ali Yahyaei of the Red Crescent Society.

Helicopters and ambulances rushed injured people to hospitals. Frosty conditions slowed firefighters' access to the scene, IRNA reported. Temperatures were below freezing even in the afternoon.
Two passenger trains collide in Iran's Semnan Province resulting in at least 44 deaths and 100 people injured.