At least four killed, 500 injured in Iran port explosion: state media

Dubai (Reuters): A massive explosion was reported at the Shahid Rajaee Port in southern Iran, local media reported on Saturday, leaving four people dead and over 500 injured.

“Unfortunately, at least four deaths have been confirmed by rescuers,” the head of the Red Crescent Society’s Relief and Rescue Organisation, Babak Mahmoudi, told state TV.

State television, citing emergency services, reported that “516 people have been injured as hundreds have been transferred to nearby medical centres” in the southern province of Hormozgan, where the Shahid Rajaee port is located.

The explosion was reported at around 12:30am local time (2100GMT/2am PKT) on Saturday. A large explosion rocked Shahid Rajaee port in the southern Iranian city of Bandar Abbas on Saturday, with at least 47 people injured after the blast, state media reported.

The blast occurred as Iran began a third round of nuclear talks with the United States in Oman, although the cause of the explosion was not immediately clear.

“The cause of this incident was the explosion of several containers stored in the Shahid Rajaee Port wharf area. We are currently evacuating and transferring the injured to medical centres,” a local crisis management official told state TV.

Fars news agency reported that 47 people were injured according to initial estimates.

Semi-official Tasnim news agency added that the port’s activities were suspended to extinguish the fire and that considering the large number of port employees “many people were probably injured or even killed in the incident.”

The blast shattered windows within a radius of several kilometres, Iranian media said, with footage shared online showing a mushroom cloud forming following the explosion.

In 2020, computers at the same port were hit by a cyberattack that caused massive backups on waterways and roads leading to the facility. The Washington Post had reported that Iran’s arch-foe Israel appeared to be behind that incident as retaliation for an earlier Iranian cyberattack.