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A huge explosion has taken place at Shahid Rajaee Port near Bandar Abbas, in southern Iran, with conflicting reports about the cause of the incident. More than 400 people injured after the blast, state media reported. State television, citing emergency services, reported that "406 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.

"The cause of this incident was the explosion of several containers stored in the Shahid Rajaee Port wharf area. We are currently evacuating and transferring the injured to medical centres," a local crisis management official told state TV.

The blast shattered windows within a radius of several kilometres, Iranian media said, with footage shared online showing a mushroom cloud forming following the explosion.Initial reports suggested that a gas tanker exploded as reported by Iran's IRNA news agency. Videos circulating online show thick a plume of smoke at the scene.

The blast occurred as Iran began a third round of nuclear talks with the United States in Oman, although the cause of the explosion was not immediately clear.

Semi-official Tasnim news agency added that the port's activities were suspended to extinguish the fire and that considering the large number of port employees "many people were probably injured or even killed in the incident."

Efforts were ongoing to extinguish a significant fire, with the port's customs saying that trucks were being evacuated from the area and that the container yard where the explosion occurred likely contained "dangerous goods and chemicals."

State TV said "negligence in handling flammable materials was a contributing factor" in the explosion.

Oil facilities were not affected by the blast as the National Iranian Petroleum Refining and Distribution Company issued a statement saying: "The explosion and fire in Shahid Rajaee Port have no connection to refineries, fuel tanks, distribution complexes and oil pipelines related to this company."

"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 1,000 kilometres (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.

As emergency services dispatched rapid response teams to the port, First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref ordered an investigation to determine the cause of the blast and assess the extent of the damage, according to the ISNA news agency.

Mehrdad Hassanzadeh, head of Hormozgan 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 said.

The explosion was so powerful that it could be felt and heard some 50 kilometres away, Fars news agency reported, with residents saying they could feel the ground shake even at a distance from the port.

"The shockwave was so strong that most of the port buildings were severely damaged," Tasnim news agency reported.

In 2020, computers at the same port were hit by a cyberattack that caused massive backups on waterways and roads leading to the facility. The Washington Post had reported that Iran's arch-foe Israel appeared to be behind that incident as retaliation for an earlier Iranian cyberattack.

*With Agency Inputs

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