LAST UPDATE | 26 Apr

FIVE PEOPLE HAVE died after a massive explosion and fire at a port in southern Iran, authorities said.

Babak Mahmoudi, the head of the country’s rescue organisation, made the announcement of the fatalities on state television.

At least 700 others have been injured in the blast at the Shahid Rajaei port just outside of Bandar Abbas, a major facility for container shipments for the Islamic Republic that handles some 80 million tons (72.5 million metric tons) of goods a year.

Social media videos showed black billowing smoke after the blast.

Others showed glass blown out of buildings miles 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.

For hours, authorities in Iran offered no clear explanation for what caused the blast at the port, which is just outside Bandar Abbas, though they did deny that the explosion had anything to do with the country’s oil industry.

However, the port took in a shipment of “sodium perchlorate rocket fuel” in March, the private security firm Ambrey said.

The fuel is part of a shipment from China by two vessels to Iran first reported in January by the Financial Times.

The fuel was going to be used to replenish Iran’s missile stocks, which had been depleted by its direct attacks on Israel during the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Industrial accidents happen in Iran, particularly at its ageing 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.

Mehrdad Hasanzadeh, a provincial disaster management official, told Iranian state TV that first responders were trying to reach the area while others were attempting to evacuate the site.

Hasanzadeh said the blast came from containers at Shahid Rajaei port in the city, without elaborating.

State TV also reported there had been a building collapse caused by the explosion, though there were no immediate other details offered.

The Interior Ministry also said it launched an investigation into the incident.

Shahid Rajaei port in Hormozgan province is some 1,050 kilometres south east of Iran’s capital Tehran on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of all oil traded passes.

In 2020, a suspected Israeli cyber attack targeted the port.

It came after Israel said it thwarted a cyber attack targeting its water infrastructure, which it attributed to Iran.

The blast happened as Iran and the United States met on Saturday in Oman for the third round of negotiations over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear programme.