TEHRAN: At least three people have been killed and 48 others wounded when a bus carrying Pakistani pilgrims crashed into a truck in southern Iran, state media reported Monday.
In recent days, Shiite Muslims have been heading to Iraq for a major ritual, with Pakistanis often traveling through Iran to attend the Arbaeen commemoration.
Iran’s official news agency IRNA said a bus collided with a truck late Sunday on the main road between Neyriz city in Fars province and Sirjan in Kerman province, leaving “48 wounded and three dead.”
It did not specify how many people where on board the bus.
Col. Abdol Hashem Dehghani, a Fars traffic police official quoted by IRNA, said the accident was caused by “a technical failure” in the brakes and the driver’s “inability to control the vehicle.”
This was the third road accident in less than a week involving Pakistani pilgrims.
Two separate bus accidents hours apart in Pakistan on Sunday left at least 35 people dead and dozens more injured, officials said.
The first happened when a bus carrying Shiite Muslim pilgrims returning from Iraq through Iran fell from a highway into a ravine in southwest Pakistan, killing at least 12 people and injuring 32 others, police and officials said.
Hours later, 23 people were killed when a bus fell into a ravine in Kahuta district in the eastern Punjab province, police and officials said.
The first accident occurred on the Makran coastal highway after the driver lost control of the bus when its brakes failed while passing through Lasbela district in Baluchistan province, local police chief Qazi Sabir said.
Bus accidents are common in Pakistan. The crash on Sunday occurred days after 28 Pakistani pilgrims were killed in a bus crash in neighboring Iran while heading to Iraq.
The bodies of those victims were brought home on a Pakistani military plane on Saturday and buried in the southern Sindh province.
Sabir said the bus that fell into a ravine on Sunday was heading to Pakistan's eastern Punjab province.
Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in separate statements expressed their deep sorrow over the accident. They asked authorities to ensure the provision of the best medical treatment for the injured pilgrims.
Thousands of Shiites travel to Iraq’s holy city of Karbala to commemorate Arbaeen — Arabic for the number 40 — marking the end of the annual 40-day mourning period after the date of the 7th century death of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Hussein, a central figure in Shiite Islam.
Hussein died at the hands of the Muslim Umayyad forces in the Battle of Karbala, during the tumultuous first century of Islam’s history.
