IRAN: A petrol truck exploded after smashing into a bus in south-east Iran late on Thursday, killing 90 people and injuring 114.
"The disaster is so grave we cannot identify faces and cannot differentiate between corpses," Mr Haidar Ali Nourai, governor of the south-eastern city of Zahedan, told state television yesterday.
He said the accident happened when the truck lost control, and ploughed into a bus waiting at Nosratabad police checkpoint. The fireball then enveloped five other buses.
Television showed bodies charred beyond recognition.
Red Crescent spokesman Mr Mehran Nourbakhsh said 90 people had died and 114 were injured. The aid group sent 40 workers to the scene.
Zahedan parliamentarian Mr Hossein Ali Shahriari said the checkpoint was badly positioned on a sharp bend. "Inspections at this checkpoint use stone-age methods," he told the ISNA student new agency. "We always see lots of buses and cars caught in queues at this road block."
Iran has one of the highest road accident rates in the world, averaging five deaths every two hours. Nosratabad lies on the road from Zahedan to Bam, which was hit by an earthquake last year that killed more than 20,000 people.
Zahedan is about 20 miles from the Pakistani border. The road is dotted with checkpoints because it is the main route for drug smugglers taking opiates from Afghanistan and Pakistan to the West.