Iran’s president visits those injured in port explosion that killed at least 40 people

DUBAI — Iran’s president on Sunday visited some of those injured in a huge explosion that rocked one of the Islamic Republic’s main ports, a facility purportedly linked to an earlier delivery of a chemical ingredient used to make missile propellant.

The visit by President Masoud Pezeshkian came as the toll from Saturday’s blast at the Shahid Rajaei port outside Bandar Abbas in southern Iran’s Hormozgan province rose to 40, with about 1,000 others injured.

Iran’s military sought to deny the delivery of ammonium perchlorate from China, but new videos emerged showing an apocalyptic scene at the still-smoldering port. A crater that appeared yards deep sat surrounded by burning smoke so dangerous that authorities closed schools and businesses in the area.

Containers appeared smashed or thrown as if discarded toys, while the burned carcasses of trucks and cars sat around the site.

“We have to find out why it happened,” Pezeshkian said during a meeting with officials aired by Iranian state television.

Authorities described the fire as under control, saying emergency workers hoped it would be fully extinguished later Sunday. Overnight, helicopters and heavy cargo aircraft flew repeated sorties over the burning port, dumping seawater on the site. Satellite pictures taken Sunday by Planet Labs PBC and analyzed by the Associated Press showed a huge plume of black smoke still over the site.

Provincial Gov. Mohammad Ashouri gave the latest death toll, Iranian state TV reported. Pirhossein Kolivand, head of Iran’s Red Crescent Society, said that 190 of about 1,000 injured remained hospitalized Sunday, according to a statement carried by an Iranian government website. The governor declared three days of mourning.

Private security firm Ambrey says the port received the missile fuel chemical in March. It was part of a shipment of ammonium perchlorate from China by two vessels to Iran, first reported in January by the Financial Times. The chemical, used to make solid propellant for rockets, 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, Ambrey said.

Ship-tracking data analyzed by the Associated Press put one of the vessels believed to be carrying the chemical in the vicinity in March, as Ambrey said.

“The fire was reportedly the result of improper handling of a shipment of solid fuel intended for use in Iranian ballistic missiles,” the security firm said.

Iranian Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Reza Talaei-Nik on Sunday denied that missile fuel had been imported through the port.

“No sort of imported and exporting consignment for fuel or military application was [or] is in the site of the port,” he told state television by telephone. He called foreign reports on delivery of the missile fuel baseless but offered no explanation for what material detonated with such incredible force at the site. Talaei-Nik promised that authorities would offer more information later.

It’s unclear why Iran wouldn’t have moved the chemicals from the port, particularly after the Beirut port blast in 2020. That explosion, caused by the ignition of hundreds of tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate, killed more than 200 people and injured over 6,000 others. However, Israel targeted Iranian missile sites where Tehran uses industrial mixers to create solid fuel — potentially meaning that it had no place to process the chemical.

Social media video of the explosion Saturday at Shahid Rajaei showed reddish smoke rising from the fire just before the detonation. That suggests a chemical compound involved in the blast, like in the Beirut explosion.

Meanwhile Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin deployed several emergency aircraft to Bandar Abbas to provide assistance, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported.

Gambrell writes for the Associated Press.