Officials suspect chemical materials exploded at Bandar Abbas port – Iran’s biggest container hub – as death toll hits 25.Fires continue to burn a day after a massive explosion tore through Iran’s largest commercial port in Bandar Abbas, as casualties continue to rise.
The death toll from the massive explosion at Shahid Rajaei Port rose to 25, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported, quoting an official on Sunday, as firefighters continued with their efforts to put out the fire.
Close to 800 people were reported injured, officials said.
“The total number of people killed is at least 25,” Tasnim reported, quoting Hormozgan province’s head of the judiciary, Mojtaba Ghahremani.
An injured man sits on the ground along a highway near the source of the explosion at the Shahid Rajaei Port dock, southwest of Bandar Abbas [Mohammad Rasole Moradi/AFP]
On Sunday, a video posted by Tasnim showed a helicopter hovering over the site of the incident, trying to help extinguish the fire as thick black smoke rose.
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”.
The country’s national emergency agency told Tasnim that at least five of the victims had been transferred to the city of Shiraz for further treatment.
“The fire is under control but still not out,” a state TV correspondent reported from the site about 20 hours after the explosion. Advertisement
Entekhab news website quoted the national crisis management agency as saying that 80 percent of the fire has been put out, adding that most of the 752 people taken to medical facilities for trea …
