Mashhad Metro Disaster Kills Two

Two people were killed and 11 injured on Saturday, March 7, when a tunnel in the Mashhad Metro collapsed. The victims were all construction workers involved in the building of the railway’s second line.

Line 2, which is still being built, will go from Koohsangi to Tabarsi in Mashhad and have a total of 12 underground stations. It will be connected to existing Line 1 and future Lines 3 and 4, as well as the national railway line in Iran.

“The part of the tunnel, which collapsed at about 4:00 pm, was in Resalat Street and those wounded were taken to hospital,” Shahram Taherzadeh, a medical specialist in the local Khorasan Razavi region, told Sobh Toos News agency. “The number of victims could increase to 15. The rescue team is still struggling to save other wounded workers.”

The director of the Mashhad Metro, Kianoush Kiamarz, said in an interview on national television, “Only one worker died and most of the wounded were treated as out-patients,” reported Mashhad Payam News Agency.

“The collapse was not the cause of the incident, which is still under investigation,” Kiamarz added. “It’s not easy to establish whether it was merely due to negligence, as this kind of concrete construction was used in other places before now. We’ll know more once we clean the site. We hope to resume work in 14 hours.”

However, information supplied by the head of social affairs and security measures at Mashhad Fire Brigade differed regarding the number of victims. “Fifteen workers were caught beneath the ruins because of the collapse at Metro Line 2,” reported Iranian Students’ News Agency.  

The semi-official Fars News Agency quoted the head of medical emergencies at Mashhad University of Medical Sciences as saying, “Thirteen workers were caught under the ruins, leaving two dead. Those wounded were then transferred to hospitals in the city.”

Amidst the chaos of the tunnel collapse, reports vary on the exact number of casualties. Once authorities are certain they have recovered all the victims, the cause of the incident will be fully investigated to ensure the same never happens again on any of the other lines.

Read the original article in Persian