At least 5 people have died and more than 700 have been injured this Saturday in a strong explosion in the port of Shahid Rajai, located in the southern city of Bandar Abbas, an important oil center in Iran, as reported by state television. The incident has occurred in the customs area at noon local time for reasons that are still unknown.
“The initial investigations show that the cause of the explosion were containers where chemicals were stored, which have exploited and caused these consequences,” said the spokesman for the National Crisis Management Organization, Hossein Zafari, according to the ISNA agency.
Zafari added that the explosion was so powerful that it was heard within a radius of 50 kilometers and felt tremors in some nearby areas, while the expansive wave has damaged buildings and cars in the area.
The first vice president of Iran, Mohamad Reza Aref, has ordered “an immediate and exhaustive investigation to determine the exact cause of the accident and the magnitude of the damage.” For his part, Mohammad Ashuri, governor of the province of Hormozgan, where the accident occurred, said that “the origin of the explosion is still unknown.”
Local televisions have shown images of a huge black cloud on the port, as well as panic scenes in the area.
Port activities have been suspended so that security and relief forces can quickly control the situation, according to the Tasnim agency.
Iran’s National Refining and Petroleum Distribution Company reported in a statement that activities related to its company have not been affected and continue to operate in Bandar Abás, an important oil center in the country.
This incident occurs on the same day in which an Iranian delegation. Tehran’s objective, as assured by its Foreign Minister before the meeting, is to “put an end to unfair sanctions and generate confidence in the peaceful character of its nuclear program.” From Washington they have indicated that the meeting has lasted four hours and has been “positive and productive”, but they admit that there is still “much to do.”
This port suffered a cyber attack that paralyzed its activities in 2020 and which Iran accused Israel. Shahid Rajai is a commercial and industrial port in Bandar Abás, capital of the province of Hormozgan, and has an area of more than 2,400 hectares and an annual capacity to receive more than 88 million tons of goods.
