Iran has raised the death toll to 14 after a massive explosion and fire rocked a port in the south of the country. More than 750 people were also reported injured.
The blast occurred on Saturday at the Rajaei port, located near Bandar Abbas in southern Iran. This key shipping hub handles a vast volume of cargo, estimated at 80 million tons annually.
Saturday’s blast was reportedly linked to a shipment of a chemical ingredient used to make missile propellant.
Helicopters dumped water from the air on the fire hours after the initial explosion, which happened at the Shahid Rajaei port just as Iran and the United States met on Saturday in Oman for the third round of negotiations over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear programme.
No one in Iran outright suggested the explosion came from an attack but even Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, who led the talks, on Wednesday acknowledged that “our security services are on high alert given past instances of attempted sabotage and assassination operations designed to provoke a legitimate response”.
Iranian interior minister Eskandar Momeni gave the casualty figure to state media.
Social media footage captured the aftermath of the blast, revealing thick black smoke billowing from the port area. Other videos showed the force of the explosion, with windows shattered in buildings several kilometres away.
There were few details on what sparked the blaze just outside of Bandar Abbas, which burned into Saturday night, causing other containers to explode.
The port took in a shipment of “sodium perchlorate rocket fuel” in March, the private security firm Ambrey said.
The fuel is part of a shipment from China by two vessels to Iran, first reported in January by The Financial Times.
The fuel was going to be used to replenish Iran’s missile stocks, which had been depleted by its direct attacks on Israel during the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“The fire was reportedly the result of improper handling of a shipment of solid fuel intended for use in Iranian ballistic missiles,” Ambrey said.
Ship-tracking data put one of the vessels believed to be carrying the chemical in the vicinity in March, as Ambrey said.
Iran has not acknowledged taking the shipment and the Iranian mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
It is unclear why Iran would not have moved the chemicals from the port, particularly after the Beirut port blast in 2020.
That explosion, caused by the ignition of hundreds of tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate, killed more than 200 people and injured more than 6,000 others.
Israel did target Iranian missile sites where Tehran uses industrial mixers to create solid fuel.
Social media footage of the explosion at Shahid Rajaei showed reddish-hued smoke rising from the fire just before the detonation.
That suggests a chemical compound being involved in the blast, as in the Beirut explosion.
“Get back, get back! Tell the gas (truck) to go!” a man in one video shouted just before the blast.
“Tell him to go, it’s going to blow up! Oh God, this is blowing up! Everybody evacuate! Get back! Get back!”
On Saturday night, the state-run IRNA news agency said that the Customs Administration of Iran blamed a “stockpile of hazardous goods and chemical materials stored in the port area” for the blast, without elaborating.
An aerial shot released by Iranian media after the blast showed fires burning at multiple locations in the port, with authorities later warning about air pollution from chemicals such as ammonia, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide in the air. Schools in Bandar Abbas were closed on Sunday.
Iran has a history of industrial accidents, often linked to ageing facilities, particularly within its oil sector, which faces challenges accessing necessary parts due to international sanctions.
Rajaei port is some 1,050 kilometres (652 miles) southeast of Iran’s capital, Tehran, on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20 per cent of all oil traded passes.
The blast happened as Iran and the United States met Saturday in Oman for the third round of negotiations over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear programme.
