The death toll from a massive explosion at a port in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province has climbed to 40, with over 1,000 people reported injured, Iran’s IRIB news agency said.
The blast on Saturday triggered a major fire, with 197 of the injured individuals requiring hospitalisation, according to Hormozgan Governor Mohammad Ashouri Taziani.
The cause of the explosion has not yet been determined, Xinhua news agency reported.
In response to the tragedy, the Iranian government declared Monday a day of national mourning, government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said in a post on X.
President Masoud Pezeshkian visited the port on Sunday to assess the damage and meet with some of the injured victims, according to a statement from his office.
Hossein Sajedinia, head of the National Disaster Management Organization, told IRIB that firefighting teams from five provinces were deployed to contain the blaze. He expressed hope that the fire would be brought under control within a few hours.
Sajedinia said that several containers at the port stored flammable materials such as pitch, while others contained chemicals, which intensified the fire.
Footage from closed-circuit cameras showed a small fire breaking out near several containers, which rapidly escalated, leading to a large explosion approximately 90 seconds later, Governor Ashouri Taziani said, as quoted by the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
Despite the incident, operations at the port’s wharves have resumed, and cargo handling activities are back underway, according to Iran’s official news agency IRNA.
— IANS
