More than 500 injured in Iran port blast: new state media toll

TEHRAN: The number of people injured in a powerful explosion on Saturday that ripped through a key port in southern Iran rose to more than 500, state media said.

State television, citing emergency services, reported that “516 people have been injured as hundreds have been transferred to nearby medical centres” in the southern province of Hormozgan, where the Shahid Rajaee port is located.

Earlier in the day, the toll from the massive blast rose to 195 injured, state media said.

State television reported that “195 people have been injured, dozens of whom have been transferred to medical centres” in the area of the southern port of Shahid Rajaee.

“The explosion occurred in a part of the Shahid Rajaee port dock, and we are extinguishing the fire,” state TV quoted Esmaeil Malekizadeh, a regional port official, as saying.

Shahid Rajaee, more than 1,000km (620 miles) south of the capital Tehran, is the most advanced container port in Iran, according to the official IRNA news agency.

It is located 23 kilometres west of Bandar Abbas, the Hormozgan provincial capital, and north of the Strait of Hormuz through which a fifth of world oil output passes.

Footage on state TV showed thick columns of black smoke billowing from the port area where many containers are located.

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“Four rapid response teams were dispatched to the scene after the explosion,” Head of the Hormozgan Red Crescent Society, Mokhtar Salahshour, told state TV.

Mehrdad Hassanzadeh, head of the province’s crisis management authority, told state TV that “the cause of this incident was the explosion of several containers stored in the Shahid Rajaee Port wharf area.”

“We are currently evacuating and transporting the injured to nearby medical centres,” he added, without specifying the number of casualties.