Bus carrying Shiite pilgrims from Pakistan to Iraq crashes in Iran, killing at least 28 people

A bus carrying Shiite pilgrims from Pakistan to Iraq crashed in central Iran, killing at least 28 people, an official said Wednesday.

The crash happened Tuesday night in the central Iranian province of Yazd, said Mohammad Ali Malekzadeh, a local emergency official, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.

Another 23 people suffered injuries in the crash, 14 of them serious, he added. He said all the bus passengers hailed from Pakistan.

There were 51 people on board at the time of the crash outside of the city of Taft, some 500 kilometers (310 miles) southeast of the Iranian capital, Tehran.

Iranian state television later blamed the crash on the bus brakes failing and a lack of attention by its driver.

In Pakistan, media reports quoted a local Shiite leader, Qamar Abbas, saying as many as 35 people had died in the crash. He described those on the bus as coming from the city of Larkana in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province. Pakistan’s government offered no immediate comment.

Iran has one of the world’s worst traffic safety records with some 17,000 deaths annually. The grave toll is blamed on wide disregard for traffic laws, unsafe vehicles and inadequate emergency services in its vast rural areas.

The pilgrims had been on their way to Iraq to commemorate Arbaeen.

A separate bus crash early Wednesday in Iran’s southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan province killed six people and injured 18, authorities said.