An immense blast in Iran’s southern port of Shahid Rajaee has killed at least 18 people and injured more than 700, according to state media, with an official suggesting the fire was caused by the explosion of chemical containers.
A spokesperson for Iran’s crisis management body pointed to poor storage conditions of chemicals as the trigger for the port explosion. “The cause of the explosions was the chemicals inside the containers,” Hossein Zafari, a crisis management spokesperson, told Iran’s ILNA news agency. He added that the port administration had previously been warned about the danger these chemicals posed.
The Iranian government has not yet specified the exact cause of the explosion, though it suspected combustible chemicals to be behind the blast.
The provincial attorney general had ordered a “thorough and urgent” investigation into the circumstances of the explosion, which local officials said began in several containers in the port.
Shahid Rajaee is a large Iranian container facility that handles 80m tons of goods a year, including fuel and other combustible materials. It is part of the Bandar Abbas port, the country’s largest.
State media had previously quoted Iranian security officials as saying “any speculation about the cause of the explosion is worthless”.
Videos showed a huge billowing mushroom cloud and the force of the blast destroyed a nearby building and shattered windows.
Injured people lay on the roadside as authorities declared a state of emergency at hospitals across Bandar Abbas to cope with the influx of wounded.
Aerial and naval firefighting teams worked to extinguish the blast, and state media reported officials expected the firefighting operation to be completed within an hour. Local media reported people trapped under the wreckage of a collapsed building.
In the aftermath of the explosion, port activities were suspended and Iranian customs officials halted export and transit shipments to the port.
The state-owned National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company said that oil refineries, tankers and pipelines in the area continued to operate and were unaffected by the blast.
The explosion occurred as Iran and the US met for the third round of nuclear talks in Oman on Saturday, aiming to achieve a deal on Iran’s nuclear programme. Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araqchi spoke through Omani mediators for six hours on Saturday to create a framework for a new nuclear deal.
Trump, in an interview with Time magazine on Friday, said that he thought a deal with Iran was possible. Oman’s foreign minister announced that another “high-level meeting” was scheduled for 3 May.
The US and Israel view the prospect of Iran getting a nuclear weapon as an urgent threat. Iranian officials, in turn, are keen to lift a severe US sanctions regime on the beleaguered economy.
“Iran remains steadfast in its principled stance on the need to end unjust sanctions and is ready to build confidence about the peaceful nature of its nuclear programme,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said in Oman.
In 2020, the Shahid Rajaee container facility was hit with a complex cyber-attack that jammed port logistics, which the Washington Post reported as being perpetrated by Israel in retaliation for an Iranian cyber-attack.
The cyber-attack was one of a series of incidents that has affected Iranian critical infrastructure in recent years.
The government has blamed some of the incidents, such as a 2024 coalmine blast in southern Iran which killed 31 people, on negligence. Tehran has accused Israel of being behind other incidents, such as an attack on Iranian gas pipelines last year.
The Israeli government made no comment on Saturday’s explosions in Iran.
Reuters contributed to this report
