Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has visited hospitalized survivors of a huge explosion that rocked one of the country’s main ports, killing at least 40 people and injuring about 1,000 others.
The visit on Sunday followed a massive blast the day before at the Shahid Rajaee port outside of Bandar Abbas in southern Iran’s Hormozgan province.
Arriving at the site, Pezeshkian thanked first responders, announcing, “We have come to see first hand if there is anything or any issue that the government can follow up on.”
“We will try to take care of the families who lost their loved ones, and we will definitely take care of the dear people who got injured,” he said.
Pezeshkian had previously ordered an investigation into the cause of the blast.
Meanwhile, Russia’s embassy said Moscow was sending multiple “aircraft carrying specialists” to help fight the blaze. According to Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations, one of the aircraft is a dedicated firefighting plane.
The facility has been purportedly linked to an earlier delivery of a chemical ingredient used to make missile propellant.
But Iranian Defence Ministry spokesman Reza Talaei-Nik told state TV that “there has been no imported or exported cargo for military fuel or military use in the area”.
The port’s customs office said in a statement carried by state television that the explosion probably resulted from a fire that broke out at the hazardous and chemical materials storage depot.
Iranian state television also described the fire as being under control, saying emergency workers hoped that it would be fully extinguished later on Sunday. Overnight, helicopters and heavy cargo aircraft flew repeated sorties over the burning port, dumping seawater on the site.
Also at the scene on Sunday, Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni said “the situation has stabilised in the main areas” of the port, and workers had resumed loading containers and customs clearance.
Another official on site, Minister of Roads and Urban Development Farzaneh Sadegh, said only one zone of the port was impacted, and cargo “operations are still continuing as normal in the several other zones”.
Images from the scene showed firefighters working among toppled and blackened cargo containers, and carrying out the body of a victim.
The authorities have closed off the roads leading to the site, and footage from the area has been limited to Iranian media outlets.
Authorities have also declared a day of national mourning on Monday, and three days of mourning in Hormozgan province from Sunday.
Meanwhile, messages expressing solidarity with Iran and victims of the blast have poured in from around the world.
The United Arab Emirates noted “solidarity with Iran” over the explosion and Saudi Arabia sent condolences, as did Pakistan, India, Turkiye, Russia and the United Nations.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah also offered condolences, saying Iran, with its “faith and solid will, can overcome this tragic accident”.
In the first reaction from a major European country, the German embassy in Tehran said on Instagram: “Bandar Abbas we grieve with you.”
China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement to AFP on Sunday that three Chinese victims were in a “stable” condition.
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