Cause of train explosion still under investigation

DEHNOW, Iran -- Bulldozers digging graves in this tiny Iranian village Thursday drowned out the wails of mourners waiting to bury loved ones killed when a runaway train derailed at more than 90 mph and exploded, killing 320 people and injuring hundreds more. The provincial governor said negligence or brake failure probably caused 51 train cars to roll down the tracks before dawn Wednesday.

Many of the dead were firefighters who had nearly extinguished the blaze when gasoline, fertilizer and industrial chemicals in the freight cars detonated. Other victims were villagers whose clay homes collapsed from the force of the blast. About 460 people were injured.

In this village near the train tracks, women clutched their black, all-covering chadors and wailed near the bodies of eight victims. Men sat in the dirt nearby, holding their heads in grief. An old man prayed, bending down and touching his forehead to the ground.

"I don't want to live, I have lost everything," said a sobbing Hossein Ghassemabadi, whose son and daughter-in-law were killed. "She was pregnant. I was waiting to see my grandchild."

Others tried to console him as he beat his chest and face.

The train, with noone on board, was loaded with gasoline, fertilizer, sulfur and cotton when it somehow started rolling out of a railyard before dawn Wednesday. It traveled 31 miles before hitting a sharp turn at the next station. There, all but three cars derailed, with some catching fire.

The wrecked train burned for more than five hours before its hazardous cargo exploded, killing firefighters, rescue workers, spectators and villagers. The blast collapsed mud homes in five villages, shattered windows as far as six miles away and left a 50-foot-deep crater.

"We had broken windows and the ground shook like an earthquake," said Davoud Alivardi of Borj-e-Bala, a village about three miles north of Dehnow.

Three villagers who went to look at the burning train were killed in the explosion, Alivardi said.

In an apparent indication of the explosion's force, Iranian seismologists recorded a 3.6-magnitude tremor in the area at the moment of the blast.

Emergency workers collected human remains Thursday as firefighters choking on fumes finally extinguished the burning freight cars about 400 miles east of Tehran.

A provincial official said two possible causes of the crash were being investigated.

"One ... is negligence of the personnel at the station and the other is technical failure of the braking system," said Hassan Rasouli, governor of Iran's northeastern Khorasan province.

An iron wedge used on Iranian trains to secure the wheels of the lead car was broken, and it was unclear if brakes on individual cars were working, Rasouli said.

The train's cargo was on the way from central Asian countries to Iran's southern port of Bandar Abbas, Rasouli said. Rescue officials and railway workers were aware of the hazardous cargo but did not realize that the blaze caused some freight cars to heat up to the point of combustion.

Fumes from the smoldering wreck began to lift Thursday evening. Mangled pieces of metal, including the wheels from the carriages, were scattered for several miles.

Many area residents complained of sore throats from the fumes, and experts were dispatched to determine the potential health hazards, he said.

Ali Hosseini, the head of Iran's Red Crescent relief organization, told The Associated Press that 320 people were confirmed dead.

"We don't think there are a lot more bodies buried under the rubble," he said.

Bulldozers and cranes sorted through the debris of burned train cars and devastated villages. Stunned residents of nearby Neyshabur scanned lists of the dead pasted outside hospitals and turned out for the funeral of their governor, Mojtaba Farahmand-Nekou, who was among several city officials, including the fire chief, killed by the explosion.

More than 20,000 mourners, all wearing black, looked on as Farahmand-Nekou's body -- wrapped in the red, white and green Iranian flag -- was driven through the city.

Shops and offices closed for three days of mourning.