Bus Carrying Students Overturns in Fars Province, Leaving Dozens Dead and Injured

According to Iranian media, the overturning of a bus carrying middle and high school girls in Darab County, Fars, resulted in "44 people" being killed and injured. Iranian media reported that "9" people died in this incident, including 7 female students, a driver, and a supervisor. These students were residents of Rudan and Minab counties in Hormozgan Province and were heading to participate in the "National Farzanegan" camp in Shiraz. Mohammad Hossein Hamidi, head of the Traffic Police of NAJA, stated that "the bus collided with a bridge pillar due to the driver's fatigue and drowsiness." He added that the deceased driver had started driving the bus about an hour and a half before the accident, but it seems he had not rested adequately before the incident. Reports indicate that at 4 AM on Friday, September 10, the bus carrying this group of students overturned near the Jannat section in Darab County, Fars Province. According to Tasnim News Agency, Nader Rahmani, head of the Traffic Police Information Center, also announced that the bus had 45 passengers, and 22 other students received treatment on the spot. Meanwhile, Mohammad Reza Alimanesh, head of the Medical Emergency Management Center in Fars, stated that the condition of four of these students is "critical." Hassan Noori, deputy of the National Emergency Organization, also told ISNA about the latest status of the injured students from the bus overturning in Darab, stating: "Unfortunately, two of the injured transferred to Darab Hospital suffered amputations, and based on the latest reports, two other injured students also suffered spinal cord injuries." He noted that currently five other injured individuals are undergoing surgery in the operating room. Following this incident, Mohammad Bat'haei, Minister of Education, announced his trip to Darab via a Twitter message. The location of the bus overturning was on the Darab - Bandar Abbas route. Statements from a member of the Education and Research Commission of the Parliament, Fatemeh Saidi, in an interview with ISNA regarding the accident involving Hormozgani students in Darab, stated: "The first issue is why it was planned for the bus carrying students to be on the road at midnight? The distance between Hormozgan and Fars provinces is such that with a little planning, they could have sent the students to their destination during the day when the risk of an accident is lower." She added: "If the Ministry of Education is unable to issue a binding regulation on this matter, the members of Parliament are ready to pursue this issue. Nighttime road travel for student camps should be banned. If they cannot plan so that students are not on the roads at midnight, they should explicitly state it so that alternative solutions can be considered." She also mentioned: "I just spoke with the Minister of Education over the phone and requested that a precise and comprehensive regulation for educational camps be drafted once and for all, and any violations should face serious penalties. We cannot witness such incidents every year and blame everything on the road and the vehicle." In recent years, dozens of students participating in school camps have been killed in traffic accidents. For instance, in 2012, in an accident involving a bus heading to the war zones of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war known as "Raheeyan Noor," 26 female students from Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province lost their lives. Last year, a bus carrying students from Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari overturned while returning from Mashhad, resulting in the deaths of two students. Iran is one of the most accident-prone countries in the world regarding driving. According to a report published by the Central Insurance Research Institute of Iran, among 190 countries, Iran has the second-highest road mortality rate after the African country of Sierra Leone. In recent years, approximately 17,000 people have been killed annually in road accidents, and about 300,000 have been injured. Law enforcement officials report that the number of fatalities in traffic accidents in the 1980s was about 27,000 annually, and this figure has decreased in recent years. Masoud Habibi, head of the Iranian Red Crescent Youth Organization, previously stated that due to road accidents, an additional hundred people are added to the number of disabled individuals across the country daily. Meanwhile, Hassan Hashemi, Minister of Health, stated on Friday, April 11, that the number of traffic accident fatalities in Iran "exceeds the total number of casualties from the war in the region." According to the Iranian Insurance Syndicate, during the 21 days of this year's Nowruz travels, 874 people were killed, and the compensation for the deceased amounted to 183 billion tomans for insurance companies.