Four people were killed Friday by a pipeline explosion in northeast Iran, state-run media reported Saturday.
Ali-Reza Gharibi, the managing director of Iran's Gas Engineering and Development Company, said provincial medical officials told him that relief workers and medical teams are working to determine the cause of the incident and the fatalities, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
Gharibi told IRNA that contractors were connecting a 48-inch (121 centimeter) Turkmenistan gas transfer pipeline to the country's national gas network when the explosion occurred.
Up to 10 Iranian workers have been killed after a gas pipeline exploded, reports suggest.  Iranian state media have said that the pipeline, which transports gas from the Khangiran refinery in  to the city of  in Iran's northeastern province of , exploded on Saturday, and at least ten workers were transported to hospital, where they died of their injuries.   

The director of the , Alireza Gharibi, said in an interview that "nine to ten people were killed in the Sarakhs pipeline blast." 50 others are reported to have been injured by the explosion, which sparked a large fire that has now been brought under control. After the initial incident, a number of workers with severe burns were taken to hospitals by helicopters. Gharibi stated that the explosion occurred while contractors were constructing a separate pipeline, which is to run nearby to the pipeline involved. The explosion is believed to have occurred when a construction vehicle lost balance and struck the pipeline.

Iranian Deputy Oil Minister  has said that the damaged pipeline will begin transporting gas again in the next couple of days. An investigation has begun into the cause of the disaster. According to the Associated Press, "Iran is the world's fourth-largest oil producer and also sits on the world's second largest natural gas reserves and the country's economy is heavily dependent on oil and gas revenues."


== Sources == 
*
*
*




cs:Až deset mrtvých a padesát zraněných při výbuchu plynovodu v Íránu