Fuel truck crash kills 13 in southeast Iran

Tehran, July 10: An explosion in southeast Iran killed 13 people when trucks smuggling gasoline crashed today, a police official was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying.

Police General Salah Asgarpour said the accident occurred when a truck carrying smuggled gasoline lost control and ploughed into three other trucks also carrying smuggled material, including gasoline and fabrics.

''There was a fireball in the place of the accident in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan,'' Asgarpour said.

Three people were injured, he added.

Iran has one of the highest road accident rates in the world.

Frequent crashes are blamed on poor police supervision, poor quality roads and reckless driving.

Most of the gasoline distributed in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan is illegally smuggled to neighbouring countries.

Some lawmakers have called on the government to put an end to gasoline smuggling in the province, which they say is ''more profitable than smuggling heroin''.

Iran started rationing gasoline in June to curb expensive imports and prevent gasoline smuggling. The world's fourth biggest oil exporter lacks the refining capacity to meet domestic demand.

Reuters>