The death toll from the huge explosion and fire that hit Shahid Rajaee port near Bandar Abbas in southern Iran has reached 70 people, Iranian authorities reported.
Officials from the province where the port is located stated that the massive fire caused by the explosion at the port was brought under control and fully extinguished on Monday.
The fire has been raging since the explosion happened on Saturday, after a fuel tanker detonated. According to the most recent available information, the incident took 70 lives and left over 1,000 injured. Of those wounded, 190 remain are still hospitalised, according to Pir Hossein Kolivand, head of Iran’s Red Crescent society.
An investigative committee, which investigated the circumstances behind the blast, concluded that the reason was a “failure to observe safety standards” and added that the defence authorities are “seriously seeking to identify the wrongdoers.”
“Determining the definitive cause of this incident requires a complete and comprehensive investigation of its various aspects, which, due to expert requirements, requires technical and laboratory processes,” the committee stated.
In a separate statement, Iran’s interior minister, Eskandar Momeni, blamed “negligence” for the explosion. Even the Ayatollah of Iran, Ali Khamenei, called for a thorough investigation of the blast and emphasised the need to uncover any “negligence or intent”.
Initially, Hossein Zafari, a spokesperson for Iran’s crisis management organisation, blamed the incident on poor storage of chemicals in containers at the port.
British maritime security consultants Ambrey, however, claimed that the blast was caused by improper handling of a shipment of solid fuel intended for use in Iranian ballistic missiles. Ambrey added that it was aware that an Iran-flagged ship “discharged a shipment of sodium perchlorate rocket fuel at the port in March 2025”.
