The fiery blast on the Shahid Rajaee port in southern Iran has killed at the very least 28 individuals and wounded some 1,000 others.
Iran’s president has visited these injured in an enormous explosion that rocked one of many nation’s predominant ports, a facility purportedly linked to an earlier supply of a chemical ingredient used to make missile propellant.
The go to by President Masoud Pezeshkian on Sunday got here because the toll from Saturday’s blast on the Shahid Rajaee port exterior of Bandar Abbas in southern Iran’s Hormozgan province rose to twenty-eight individuals killed and about 1,000 others injured.
Arriving on the website, Pezeshkian thanked first responders, saying, “Now we have come to see first hand if there may be something or any difficulty that the federal government can observe up on.”
“We are going to attempt to handle the households who misplaced their family members, and we will certainly handle the pricey individuals who bought injured,” he stated.
Pezeshkian had beforehand ordered an investigation into the reason for the blast.
Russia’s embassy stated Moscow was sending a number of “plane carrying specialists” to assist combat the blaze. In keeping with Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Conditions, one of many plane is a devoted firefighting aircraft.
The New York Instances quoted an individual with ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, talking on situation of anonymity to debate safety issues, as saying that what exploded was sodium perchlorate – a significant ingredient in strong gas for missiles.
However Iranian Defence Ministry spokesman Reza Talaei-Nik later instructed state TV that “there was no imported or exported cargo for army gas or army use within the space”.
The port’s customs workplace stated in an announcement carried by state tv that the explosion most likely resulted from a fire that broke out on the hazardous and chemical supplies storage depot.
Iranian state tv additionally described the fireplace as being beneath management, saying emergency staff hoped that it could be totally extinguished afterward Sunday. In a single day, helicopters and heavy cargo plane flew repeated sorties over the burning port, dumping seawater on the positioning.
Additionally on the scene on Sunday, Inside Minister Eskandar Momeni stated “the scenario has stabilised in the primary areas” of the port, and staff had resumed loading containers and customs clearance.
One other official on website, Minister of Roads and City Growth Farzaneh Sadegh, stated just one zone of the port was impacted, and cargo “operations are nonetheless persevering with as regular within the a number of different zones”.
Photos from the scene confirmed firefighters working amongst toppled and blackened cargo containers, and finishing up the physique of a sufferer.
The authorities have closed off the roads resulting in the positioning, and photographs from the realm has been restricted to Iranian media shops.
Authorities have additionally declared a day of nationwide mourning on Monday, and three days of mourning in Hormozgan province from Sunday.
In the meantime, messages expressing solidarity with Iran and victims of the blast have poured in from world wide.
The United Arab Emirates famous “solidarity with Iran” over the explosion and Saudi Arabia despatched condolences, as did Pakistan, India, Turkiye, Russia and the United Nations.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah additionally supplied condolences, saying Iran, with its “religion and strong will, can overcome this tragic accident”.
Within the first response from a significant European nation, the German embassy in Tehran stated on Instagram: “Bandar Abbas we grieve with you.”
China’s Overseas Ministry stated in an announcement to AFP on Sunday that three Chinese language victims had been in a “steady” situation.
