28 killed as bus carrying Pakistan pilgrims crashes in Iran

TEHRAN

A bus carrying Shiite pilgrims from Pakistan to Iraq crashed in central Iran, killing at least 28 people, an official said on Aug. 21.

The crash happened Aug. 20 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 southeast of the Iranian capital, Tehran.

Iranian state television later broadcast images of the bus, turned upside down on the highway with its roof smashed in and all its doors open. Rescuers stepped gingerly through the broken glass and debris littering the road.

In the state TV report, Malekzadeh blamed the crash on the bus brakes failing and a lack of attention by its driver.

In Pakistan, authorities described those on the bus as coming from the city of Larkana in Pakistan's southern Sindh province.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said he was “deeply saddened” by the crash and that diplomats were providing assistance to those affected.

“My thoughts are with the bereaved families,” Sharif said on the social platform X.