- Blast occurred as Iran began a third round of nuclear talks with US.
- Explosion originated from several containers stored in wharf area.
- Iranian officials say efforts are ongoing to extinguish resultant fire.
At least four people were killed and more than 500 injured in a powerful explosion on Saturday that ripped through a vital port in southern Iran, state media said.
“Unfortunately, at least four deaths have been confirmed by rescuers,” the head of the Red Crescent Society´s Relief and Rescue Organization, Babak Mahmoudi, told state TV.
State media reported a “massive explosion” at Shahid Rajaee, the country’s largest commercial port, located in Hormozgan province on Iran’s southern coast.
Footage broadcast on state television showed thick columns of black smoke billowing from the port area, where many containers are stored, with helicopters deployed to fight the fire.
Citing local emergency services, state TV reported that at least 516 people were injured and “hundreds have been transferred to nearby medical centres”, revising earlier tolls.
“The explosion occurred in a part of the Shahid Rajaee port dock, and we are extinguishing the fire,” state TV quoted Esmaeil Malekizadeh, a regional port official, as saying.
The customs office at the port said in a statement carried by state TV that the cause of the blast was probably a fire that broke out at the hazmat and chemical materials storage depot.
Shahid Rajaee, more than 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) south of the capital Tehran, is the most advanced container port in Iran, according to the official IRNA news agency.
It is located 23 kilometres west of Bandar Abbas, the Hormozgan provincial capital, and north of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil output passes.
As emergency services dispatched rapid response teams to the port, First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref ordered an investigation to determine the cause of the blast and assess the extent of the damage, according to the ISNA news agency.
Mehrdad Hassanzadeh, head of Hormozgan province’s crisis management authority, told state TV that “the cause of this incident was the explosion of several containers stored in the Shahid Rajaee Port wharf area”.
“We are currently evacuating and transporting the injured to nearby medical centres,” he said.
The explosion was so powerful that it could be felt and heard some 50 kilometres away, Fars news agency reported, with residents saying they could feel the ground shake even at a distance.
“The shockwave was so strong that most of the port buildings were severely damaged,” Tasnim news agency reported.
The state-owned National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company said in a statement carried by local media that “the explosion at Shahid Rajaee Port has no connection to refineries, fuel tanks, distribution complexes or oil pipelines”.
It added that “Bandar Abbas oil facilities are currently operating without interruption”.
The rare explosion comes several months after one of Iran’s deadliest work accidents in years.
The coal mine blast in September, caused by a gas leak, killed more than 50 people in Tabas in Iran’s east.
The blast also came as delegations from Iran and the United States were meeting in Oman for high-level talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian expressed sympathy for the victims of the port blast, dispatching the interior minister to supervise an investigation.
“While expressing deep regret and sympathy for the victims of the incident in Hormozgan Province, I issued an order to investigate the situation and the causes of the incident,” Pezeshkian said on X, adding that Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni will go to the area for the probe.
Pakistan expresses solidarity with Iran
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed deep sorrow over the blast at Iran’s Bandar Abbas port, according to a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
He offered condolences to the Iranian government and people and prayed for the speedy recovery of those injured.
“Pakistan stands with Iran in this time of grief,” the prime minister said.
Earlier, Pakistan’s ambassador to Iran, Muhammad Mudassir Tipu, expressed solidarity with the Iranian people and government in an X post during this trying time.
“I am deeply shocked to learn about the explosion at Shahid-Rajaee port at Bandar Abbas, with reports of hundreds injured. Our thoughts & prayers are with the injured, whom we wish a speedy recovery. Pakistan firmly stands by Iran at this tragic moment,” the ambassador said.
