Mohsen Poor-Seyed Aghaie, a deputy minister in the transport ministry and head of the state-owned railway company, appeared on state television yesterday and announced his resignation "as a social responsibility and out of sympathy for the survivors of this accident".
Two trains collided and one caught fire in the northern province of Semnan on Friday, killing 44 people and injuring dozens more, in one of the country's worst ever rail disasters.
The crash took place on the main line between Tehran and Iran's second city Mashhad.
But when a new shift started at the control centre in Shahroud, the second train was allowed to resume its journey.
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The accident happened due to "human error", Aghaie said, explaining that the official at the control centre had told the train driver to manually disable an automated system that was preventing it from moving toward the broken train.
Three people were detained over the resulting crash.
"During the investigation, three people in charge of the northeast train control centre based in the city of Shahroud... Were arrested," provincial prosecutor general Heydar Asiabi told reporters.
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