Thirteen people have been killed when a minibus collided head on with a truck in Russia's southwestern Samara region, the Interior Ministry said Sunday.

The accident happened when a front tire of the Toyota minibus exploded overnight, leading the bus to the opposite lane where a Mercedes truck was coming.

The minibus carrying 14 passengers, 11 from Uzbekistan, two from Tajikistan and one from Azerbaijan, started to burn after the collision, a ministry spokesman said.

"As a result 13 passengers of the minibus died of injuries and burns. The driver and one passenger were hospitalized with injuries," the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.

Three people were taken to a hospital "in condition of medium gravity," added the Volga regional center of the Emergency Situations' Ministry.

At a government meeting last month, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev urged measures reducing fatalities of road accidents, which are approximately 250,000 a year. 

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