A train has derailed killing at least 10 passengers and leaving dozens of people injured in Iran.
Emergency services are at the scene near Tabas, in eastern Iran, with fears that the death toll could rise after the crash which early signs suggest was caused by the train hitting an excavator.
Three helicopters and 10 ambulances are taking people to hospital following the derailment of five carriages with 50 people believed to be injured, along as the 10 dead, and 16 are in a critical condition.
Leading the rescue operation, Mehdi Valipour, told Iranian news agency ISNA: “At 5.30am today, the Tabas-Yazd passenger train was travelling on its route when it derailed at Mazino station.”
The Red Crescent Rescue Organization boss continued: "To help the rescue effort, it was arranged to bring three helicopters from Birjand, Mashhad and Yazd to the scene."
He added that there were 430 passengers and crew on the train while the worst impact of the crash was on three carriages which overturned.
Rail official Mir Hassan Mousavi told ISNA: "According to initial information, the passenger cars of the train collided with an excavator and derailed."
An investigation is now under way into the derailment.
Mojtaba Khaledi, the country's emergency spokesman, said: "Three emergency helicopters and 10 ambulances have been sent to the scene.
"Relief work is still going on in the area and according to the reports received so far, unfortunately 10 people have been killed."
Iran has a poor record for train safety with Reuters reporting 44 people were killed and 103 injured when a passenger train collided with another at a station about 150 miles east of the capital Tehran, in 2016.
On that occasion state television footage showed four derailed carriages, two of them on fire. A spokesman for Iran’s Red Crescent, Mostafa Mortazavi, at the time told the semi-official Fars news agency that firefighters were trying to control the blaze.
Semnan provincial governor Mohammad Reza Khabbaz told Iranian television it appeared that a train entering the Haft-Khan station on the outskirts of Shahroud ploughed into another that had broken down there.
