AT least 17 people have died and more than 50 have been injured in a horror train crash in Iran.
The passenger train carrying around 350 people collided with a digger near the northeastern Iranian city of Tabas on Wednesday, with paramedics warning the death toll is likely to rise.
Five of the train's 10 cars derailed in the early morning as the train travelled between the cities of Mashhad and Yazd.
Rescue teams took some time to reach the crash site around 340 miles southeast of Iran's capital Tehran, 30 miles outside of Tabas.
Regional governor Ali Akbar Rahimi said fatalities are likely to rise as rescuers search the train cars.
Aerial footage of the desert site of the disaster showed train cars on their side, with rescue crews trying to care for the injured.
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Iranian state TV later aired images from a hospital showing the injured receiving treatment.
One of the injured told the reporter they felt the train break suddenly and slow down before it derailed.
They also said that passengers inside the carriage were bouncing around "like balls in the air".
The exact cause of the crash is still under investigation.
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Although initial reports suggested the train collided with a digger close to the track, it isn't clear why such a vehicle would have been so near the tracks at night.
One official suggested it may have been part of a repair project.
Speaking to the Iranian Students' News Agency, Mir Hassan Mousavi from Iran's national railway company said the train set off on Tuesday at 7.20pm and crashed at around 5.30am this morning.
He went on: "According to the initial information obtained, five passenger wagons of this train collided with an excavator and derailed."
Mr Mousavi added: "An excavator was next to the railway line and now the head of the High Accident Commission has been sent to the scene to carefully investigate the accident."
He said that all of the uninjured passengers have been taken to Tabas where they will travel by bus to their final destination of Yazd.
Iran's worst-ever train disaster came in 2004 when a runaway freight train packed with petrol, fertiliser, sulphur and cotton crashed close to the historic city of Neyshabur.
Some 320 people were killed and 460 others were injured, while five villages were damaged.
Another crash in 2016 killed dozens and injured scores more.
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It comes just weeks after 41 people died following a high-rise collapse in Abadan, southwest Iran.
The building collapse – and the regime's response – sparked furious protests across the country, in one case leading Iranian state TV to dramatically cut the feed after crowds jeered an official during a speech.
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