Eighteen killed, fires still burning in huge Iran port blast

TEHRAN (AFP): Fires were blazing Sunday a day after a massive explosion tore through Iran’s largest commercial port, killing at least 18 people and wounding 800 others, according to state media.

The blast occurred Saturday at Shahid Rajaee Port in southern Iran, near the Strait of Hormuz through which a fifth of world oil output passes.

The port’s customs office said in a statement carried by state television that the explosion probably resulted from a fire that broke out at the hazardous and chemical materials storage depot.

The New York Times quoted a person with ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss security matters, saying that what exploded was sodium perchlorate — a major ingredient in solid fuel for missiles.

Iranian state TV on Sunday gave an updated toll of 18 people killed and 800 injured, with thick black smoke still visible in live footage from the scene.

Three Chinese nationals were “lightly injured”, China’s state broadcaster CCTV reported, citing its Bandar Abbas consulate.

The explosion was so powerful that it was felt and heard about 50 kilometres (30 miles) away, Fars news agency reported.

Images from IRNA showed rescuers and survivors walking along a wide boulevard carpeted with debris after the blast at Shahid Rajaee, more than 1,000 kilometres south of Tehran.

Flames engulfed a truck trailer and blood stained the side of a crushed car, while a helicopter dropped water on massive black smoke clouds billowing from behind stacked shipping containers.

Citing local emergency services, state TV reported that “hundreds have been transferred to nearby medical centres”, while the provincial blood transfusion centre issued a call for donations.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian expressed sympathy for the victims of the deadly blast, adding he had “issued an order to investigate the situation and the causes”.

Speaking later at the scene, Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni told state TV: “All resources from other cities and Tehran have been dispatched.”

With choking smoke and air pollution spreading throughout the area, all schools and offices in Bandar Abbas, the nearby capital of Hormozgan province, have been ordered closed on Sunday to allow authorities to focus on the emergency effort, state TV said.