Thirteen people were killed when a minibus collided head on with a truck in Russia's southwestern Samara region, an interior ministry official said Sunday.

 

 The accident happened when a front tire of the Toyota minibus exploded, leading the bus to the opposite lane where it collided with a truck, Xinhua reported.  The minibus carrying 14 passengers, 11 from Uzbekistan, two from Tajikistan and one from Azerbaijan, started to burn after the collision, a ministry spokesperson said.

 

 "Thirteen passengers died of injuries, while the driver and one passenger were hospitalised," the Interfax news agency quoted the official as saying.  At a government meeting last month, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev urged measures reducing fatalities of road accidents, which are approximately 250,000 a year.