国际英语新闻：At least nine killed, dozens injured in Iran gas pipeline explosion: report

TEHRAN, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- At least nine people were killed and dozens were injured in Iran gas pipeline explosion on Friday night near Iran's northeastern city of Mashhad in Khorasan Razavi province, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Saturday.

"About nine to 10 people were killed in Sarakhs pipeline blast, " Alireza Gharibi, director of Iran Gas Engineering and Development Company, told Fars.

Contractors were busy connecting the 48-inch (about 1.22 meters) Turkmen gas transfer pipeline to the nationwide gas network on Friday when the incident happened, Gharibi was quoted as saying.

Earlier on Saturday, an Iranian emergency official said six workers were killed in the gas pipeline explosion.

"The gas pipeline incident has claimed six. About 20 others were injured and have been taken to the hospital," Gholamreza Masoumi, chief of Iran's Medical Emergency and Incidents Management Center, was quoted by the semi-official ISNA news agency as saying.

The blast occurred in the Mazdavand region, 90 km from Mashhad, when an excavator struck a pipeline which transports gas from the Khangiran refinery in Sarakhs to Mashhad, Gharibi was quoted by the local satellite Press TV as saying.

The explosion has caused an area as large as two square kilometers burning on fire, the official IRNA news agency said.

A witness said that the fire was so horrible that the flames could be seen from the nearby Gonbadli village in Saraksh, 65 km away from the scene, the witness said.

The blaze is currently under control, yet no reporter is allowed to show up at the site of the accident.