Five of the train's 11 coaches came off the track when it hit an excavator 50 kilometres outside of the central Iranian city of of Tabas .
At least 17 people are dead and dozens critically injured after a train in central Iran hit an excavator and partially derailed.The accident happened when the train hit an excavatorMehdi Valipour, the Iranian Red Crescent's head of emergency operations, said five of the train's 11 coaches came off the track in the incident 50 kilometres outside of the central Iranian city of of Tabas at about 5:30am on Wednesday.
"The number of the dead may rise as most of the injured are in critical condition," emergency services spokesman Mojtaba Khaledi said. Iran's worst train disaster came in 2004, when a runaway train loaded with petrol, fertiliser, sulfur and cotton crashed near the historic city of Neyshabur, killing about 320 people, injuring 460 others and damaging five villages.Iran has 14,000 kilometres of railway lines.Iran also has some 17,000 annual deaths on its highways, one of the world's worst traffic safety records.
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