At least 8 killed, over 750 injured in suspected chemical explosion at Iran’s Bandar Abbas port

A massive blast probably caused by the explosion of chemical materials, shook Shahid Rajaee port in Bandar Abbas, a key southern port city in Iran on Saturday, leaving at least eight people killed and over 750 injured, according to Iranian state-run media.

Although the cause of the blast was not immediately clear, the customs office at the port said in a statement carried by state TV that it probably resulted from a fire that broke out at the hazmat and chemical materials storage depot.

Mehrdad Hasanzadeh, a provincial disaster management official, gave the updated casualty figure in an interview on state television. The previous toll was four dead and more than 500 others injured.

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 world oil output passes.

Social media videos showed black billowing smoke after the blast. Others showed glass blown out of buildings kilometers (miles) away from the epicenter of the explosion.

Authorities have offered no cause for the explosion yet. Industrial accidents happen in Iran, particularly at its aging oil facilities that struggle for access to parts under international sanctions. But Iranian state TV specifically ruled out any energy infrastructure as causing or being damaged in the blast.

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 from the port.

“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.

A coal mine blast in September caused by a gas leak killed more than 50 people in Tabas, in Iran’s east, prompting authorities to announce public mourning.

With inputs from agencies