"Two hundred and thirteen people have been injured and 40 lost their lives because of overcrowding at the funeral procession," the head of the country's emergency services, Pirhossein Koolivand, told the channel.

The injured were immediately transferred to hospital, he added.

AFP correspondents in Kerman said the streets of the southeastern city were packed with mourners for the funeral of Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani in his hometown.

People were seen taking refuge on hillsides around the city, in footage broadcast on state television.

The head of Bahonar hospital in central Kerman said the facility had received 13 bodies.

Twelve other people had been hospitalised, none of them with critical injuries, and another 40 people had been released with slight injuries, doctor Peyman Karnama told AFP.

Karnama added that more people killed in the crush had been taken to other medical centres in the city.

A grieving family was seen waiting in the yard of Bahonar hospital, where the names of casualties admitted were posted on a window at the entrance.

Soleimani, the hugely popular head of the Guards' Quds Force, was assassinated on Friday in a US drone strike near Baghdad international airport, an operation that shocked the Islamic republic.

Tuesday's funeral comes after days of processions through the southwestern city of Ahvaz and the shrine cities of Qom and Mashhad as well as the capital Tehran.