Iran bus crash kills five Iraqi tourists, injures 31 others

A bus crash killed five Iraqi tourists and injured 31 others in northeastern Iran on Sunday.

The bus collided with two cars on a road that runs between the cities of Sabzevar and Nishapur in Razavi Khorasan province, causing it to overturn, Iranian police said.

Some of the injuries were critical, according to Iranian media. Hundreds of thousands of people from Iraq visit neighbouring Iran annually.

Many of them go to the city of Mashhad in Razavi Khorasan, where the shrine of Imam Ali bin Musa Al-Rida is located.

Al-Rida was the eighth imam or spiritual leader in the Twelver Shia branch of Islam, the most widely practised religion in Iran and Iraq.

Traffic accidents are the third-biggest cause of death in Iran after heart disease and cancer.

The roads and streets of Iran witness 800,000 traffic accidents each year – an accident rate of about one per minute.

Around 50 people die and 1,000 are injured a day on average.