Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 27
By Fatih Karimov – Trend
Iran’s deputy minister of Roads and Urban Development and head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways, Mohsen Pour Seyed Aghaei, resigned over deadly train crash, which claimed lives of 44 Iranian citizens.
Pour Seyed Aghaei announced his resignation on Nov. 26 as a “social responsibility” and out of sympathy for the survivors of this accident, Iran’s IRNA news agency reported.
The incident occurred due to "human error", Pour Seyed Aghaei said.
However he added that managers should assume responsibility for such incidents, and for this reason, he has officially submitted his resignation over the tragic incident.
Three people were detained over the crash.
Two trains collided and one caught fire in the northern province of Semnan on Nov. 25, killing 44 people and injuring dozens more, in one of the country's worst ever rail disasters. The crash occurred near Shahroud, on the main line between Teheran and Iran's second city Mashhad.
In 2009, at least three people were killed and two others got injured when two trains collided on the outskirts of Tehran. The accident happened when a passenger train en route from Mashhad to Tehran hit a maintenance train on the line near the town of Varamin.
Back in 2004, a train loaded with chemicals and fertilizer derailed and exploded along the same route, killing at least 300 people.