WATCH: Tanker, bus collide, causing deadly explosion in Iran

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – In a collision between a bus and an oil tanker in Iran late Monday evening, nearly 20 people have been killed, and over 20 more were injured.

While traveling on the Natanz-Kashan highway in Iran’s Isfahan Province at around 11 pm, a bus rear-ended the tanker, causing an immediate explosion and the complete destruction of the truck carrying fuel, according to Iranian media outlets IRNA and ISNA.

IRNA said emergency medical personnel, the Red Crescent, firefighting and law enforcement forces arrived at the scene of the incident and helped transfer the victims of the accident to hospitals near the area.

“Passengers that were able to escape the bus at the start of the accident do not have severe burns. But, unfortunately, the persistent blaze took the lives of 19 of our fellow citizens [who were trapped inside],” the deputy head of aid and rescue for the Red Crescent of Isfahan Province told ISNA, pointing out that 27 passengers were able to escape with first-degree burns.

Officials have yet to report the exact numbers of those who died in the incident.

In a similar incident in July, 13 people were killed when a tanker crashed into a bus in Sanandaj (Sine), a city in Iranian Kurdistan (Rojhilat), some 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of Tehran.

One of the most accident-prone countries of the world, 32.1 out 100.000 Iranians die yearly due to traffic accidents according to a 2013 report by the World Health Organization (WHO). According to 2015 numbers, the country had lost 24.896 people in traffic-related incidents that year alone.

Editing by Nadia Riva