At least eight people were killed and 750 injured in a massive explosion in one of the key ports in Iran, the authorities said.
The explosion took place in Shahid Rajaee, the largest commercial port in the country, near the southern city of Bandar Abbas on Saturday morning.
He blew up the windows and roofs from the nearby buildings and destroy the cars. The residents said they felt the impact of the explosion up to 50 km (31 miles).
The videos checked by the BBC show an increasing fire in intensity before a huge explosion, with people later fleeing the explosion and others injured on roads surrounded by smoking debris.
Air images have shown at least three ablarization zones and the Iranian Minister of the Interior later confirmed that the fire spread from one container to another.
Some workers were “still trapped under collapsed roofs and we are trying to save them,” said an official in local media, according to BBC Persian.
A private maritime risk company said it thought that the contained containers had contained solid fuel for ballistic missiles.
The fire is the result of “poor management of a solid fuel expedition intended to be used in Iranian ballistic missiles”, said Ambrey Intelligence.
Ambrey said he was aware that a flag ship in Iran “released a fuel expedition from sodium perchlorate at the port in March 2025”.
The Financial Times newspaper had previously pointed out that two ships had sent fuel to Iran from China.
The state media cited witnesses saying that the explosion occurred after a fire and spread to unleavened containers storing “flammable materials”.
Customs officials subsequently published a statement reported by Iranian state television saying that the explosion had probably resulted from a fire that had broken out in a storage of chemical and chemical materials.
In a subsequent update, Ambrey cited the national organization for the management of Iranian disasters, saying that the officials had previously issued warnings at the port of Shahid Rajaee concerning the safe storage of chemicals.
(EPA)
The highways were strewn with debris and rubble after the explosion (Reuters)
The port of Shahid Rajaee is the largest and most advanced terminal in Iran, through which a large part of the country's commercial transits.
It is located on the Strait of Hormuz, a large shipping channel for oil freight, and is about 20 km (12 miles) west of Bandar Abbas, the main Iranian port city on its southern coast and houses the main base of the Iranian Navy.
The Iranian National Petroleum Production Society said that the port explosion had “no link” with oil refineries, fuel and pipelines in the country, local media reported.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian expressed his “deep regret and sympathy” for the victims. He announced a government investigation and sent the Minister of the Interior to the region to lead him.
The explosion on Saturday took place while Iranian and American officials met in Oman for a third round of discussions on the Iranian nuclear program.
Negotiations have been underway for several weeks while the United States government under President Trump has sought to conclude an agreement that prevents Iran from developing its program in exchange for economic sanctions.
(BBC)
