It’s unclear why Iran wouldn’t have moved the chemicals from the port, particularly after a port blast in Beirut 2020, also linked to chemicals, which killed more than 200 people and injured more than 6000. That explosion was caused by the ignition of hundreds of tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate. However, Israel has targeted Iranian missile sites where Tehran uses industrial mixers to create solid fuel.
Social media footage of the explosion on Saturday at Shahid Rajaei saw reddish-hued smoke rising from the fire just before the detonation. That suggests a chemical compound being involved in the blast, like in the Beirut explosion.
Black smoke rises in the sky after a massive explosion rocked a port near the southern city of Bandar Abbas, Iran on Saturday.Credit: Razieh Pudat/ISNA via AP
“Get back, get back! Tell the gas [truck] to go!” a man in one video shouted just before the blast. “Tell him to go, it’s going to blow up! Oh God, this is blowing up! Everybody evacuate! Get back! Get back!”
On Saturday night, the state-run IRNA news agency said that the Customs Administration of Iran blamed a “stockpile of hazardous goods and chemical materials stored in the port area” for the blast, without elaborating.
An aerial shot released by Iranian media after the blast showed fires burning at multiple locations in the port, with authorities later warning about air pollution from chemicals such as ammonia, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide in the air. Schools and offices in Bandar Abbas will be closed on Sunday, the first day of the working week in the Middle East.
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Shahid Rajaei has been a target before. A 2020 cyberattack attributed to Israel targeted the port. It came after Israel said that it thwarted a cyberattack targeting its water infrastructure, which it attributed to Iran. Israeli officials didn’t respond to requests for comment regarding Saturday’s explosion.
Social media videos showed black billowing smoke after the blast. Others showed glass blown out of buildings kilometres away from the epicentre of the explosion. State media footage showed the injured crowding into at least one hospital, with ambulances arriving as medics rushed one person by on a stretcher.
The Interior Ministry said it had launched an investigation into the blast, while Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian offered his condolences to those affected.
Shahid Rajaei port is about 1050 kilometres southeast of Iran’s capital, Tehran, on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20 per cent of all oil traded passes.
AP
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