The head of the crisis management authority in Iran’s Hormozgan province said on Sunday that the fire at the Shahid Rajaee Port near Bandar Abbas was under control. Meanwhile, the provincial governor declared three days of mourning, and Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sent their condolences to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
The explosion at Iran's most advanced container port has now killed at least 18 people and injured 750 others, Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni said in an update Sunday.
Fires burn after deadly explosion at Iran's Bander Abbas port
A source in the Iranian Revolutionary Gurard Corps (IRGC) told The New York Times that sodium perchlorate, used in the production of solid fuel for missiles, had exploded.
Hossein Zafari, a spokesperson for Iran's crisis management organisation, appeared to blame the explosion on poor storage of chemicals in containers at Shahid Rajaee. "The cause of the explosion was the chemicals inside the containers," he told Iran's ILNA news agency.
"Previously, the Director General of Crisis Management had given warnings to this port during their visits and had pointed out the possibility of danger," Zafari said.
However, an Iranian government spokesperson said that although chemicals had likely caused the blast, it was not yet possible to determine the exact reason.
President Masoud Pezeshkian ordered an investigation of the incident and sent his interior minister to the port, who said efforts were continuing to extinguish the fire and prevent it from spreading to other areas.
Iran's official news channels aired footage of a vast black and orange cloud of smoke billowing up above the port in the aftermath of the blast, and an office building with its doors blown off and papers and debris strewn around.
Located near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, Shahid Rajaee port is Iran’s biggest container hub, handling a majority of the country’s container goods, according to state media.
The blast shattered windows within a radius of several kilometres and was heard in Qeshm, an island 26 kilometres (16 miles) south of the port, Iranian media said.
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Wounded evacuated from the Iranian port near Bandar Abbas after a deadly explosion
(Photo: Mohammad Rasole Moradi / AFP )
4 View gallery
An injured man at the Iranian port near Bandar Abbas after the deadly explosion on Saturday
(Photo: Mohammad Rasole Moradi / AFP)
The semi-official Tasnim news agency posted footage of injured men lying on the road being tended to amid scenes of confusion.
State TV earlier reported that poor handling of flammable materials was a "contributing factor" to the explosion. A local crisis management official told state TV that the blast took place after several containers stored at the port exploded.
As relief workers tried to put out fires, the port's customs officials said trucks were being evacuated from the area and that the container yard where the explosion occurred likely contained "dangerous goods and chemicals". Activities at the port were halted after the blast, officials said.
Deadly incidents
A series of deadly incidents has hit Iranian energy and industrial infrastructure in recent years, with many, like Saturday's blast, blamed on negligence. They have included refinery fires, a gas explosion at a coal mine, and an emergency repair incident at Bandar Abbas that killed one worker in 2023.
Iran has blamed some other incidents on its arch-foe Israel, which has carried out attacks on Iranian soil targeting Iran's nuclear programme in recent years and last year bombed the country's air defenses.
Tehran said Israel was behind a February 2024 attack on Iranian gas pipelines, while in 2020 computers at Shahid Rajaee were hit by a cyberattack. The Washington Post reported that Israel appeared to be behind that incident as retaliation for an earlier Iranian cyberattack.
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Israel has indicated it is nervous about the outcome of U.S.-Iran talks, demanding a full dismantlement of Iran's nuclear programme. Tehran says the programme is used solely for peaceful purposes, while international observers say it is getting closer to being able to build a bomb.
There was no immediate comment from the IDF or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office when asked for comment on whether Israel was in any way involved in Saturday's explosion.
Oil facilities were not affected by the blast on Saturday, Iranian authorities said.
The National Iranian Petroleum Refining and Distribution Company said in a statement it had "no connection to refineries, fuel tanks, distribution complexes and oil pipelines."