TEHRAN, Feb 15 (AFP) - Iranian President Mohammad Khatami on Tuesday ordered an immediate probe into a fire at a Tehran mosque that killed at least 60 worshippers gathered for prayers ahead of a major Shiite religious festival.
Police said that a stampede triggered by panic was to blame for the high death toll in Monday's disaster, while many worshippers had suffocated to death from the smoke.
"It was absolute panic ... A lot of people were hurt in rushing towards the exits," said a police commander.
The blaze broke out as the faithful were packed for evening prayers inside the Ark mosque near Tehran's main bazaar, when panicked screams rang out from the women's section, state television reported.
"When I realised a fire had broken out in the women's section, I rushed to help my mother and sister. But my eight-year sister was trampled to death in the stampede," an unidentified young man told the state news agency IRNA.
At least 60 people perished and 300 others suffered burns, according to the latest toll on the television.
Media reports said the fire was probably caused by a heater brought into the mosque to protect worshippers from the bitter cold and which set a tent ablaze and spread flames like wildfire through the mosque's courtyard.
"Fire poured down" on worshippers rushing to the narrow exit doors, the television report said.
The blaze spread to the men's section of the segregated congregation, largely due to tarpaulin in the courtyard that had been treated with paraffin as protection from the rain, the report said.
Khatami called for immediate action.
"The interior ministry and other concerned organisations must take immediate action to investigate the cause of the incident," Khatami was quoted as saying in a condolence message carried by the student news agency ISNA.
The judiciary has been tasked with investigating the disaster, the judiciary's spokesman Jamal Karimi-Rad told state television.
The television listed other causes of the high death toll in the blaze on the eve of Ashura as a lack of fire safety equipment, the dilapidated structure of the 70-year-old mosque, and leaky heaters.
Ashura is the annual Shiite ritual commemorating the death of Hussein -- the Prophet Mohammed's grandson who was killed with his followers in 680 AD as Sunnis and Shiites disputed Mohammed's succession.
02/15/2005 14:32 GMT - AFP