A huge explosion and fire shocked a port on Saturday in southern Iran allegedly linked to a load of chemical ingredient used for the construction of a promotional rocket, killing eight people and injuring more than 700 others

Mehdad Hassanzadeh, a Civil Protection official, gave the revised victims’ report in an interview on state television. The previous report spoke of four dead and over 500 injured.

The explosion at the port of Sahid Rajaei occurred while Iran and the United States were holding Oman on Saturday the third round of negotiations on Tehran’s rapidly evolving nuclear program.

Although no one in Iran said directly that the explosion came from an attack, even Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragsi, who was led by talks, admitted on Wednesday that “our security services are in an increased alarm, due to previous incidents of attempts and attempts to attempt.

Hours later, authorities in Iran have not given a clear explanation of what caused the port explosion just outside the city of Badar Abbas, although they denied that the incident had anything to do with the country’s oil industry.

However, the port had received a mission of “sodium rocket fuel” in March, according to the private security company Ambrey. This load was part of a mission from China to Iran, which was first mentioned in January by the Financial Times. The fuel was intended to replenish Iran’s rocket reserves, which had been reduced due to immediate attacks against Israel in the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

“The fire is said to have been caused by the poor management of a solid fuel mission, destined for use in Iranian ballistic missiles,” Ambrey said.

Ship monitoring data analyzed by the Associated Press places one of the ships that are believed to have transported the chemical material to the area in March, as Ambrey said. Iran has not officially admitted that it has received the load.

It remains unclear because Iran had not moved chemicals from the port, especially after the devastating explosion at the port of Beirut in 2020, caused by the ignition of hundreds of tons of explosive nitrate ammonium, killing more than 200 people and injuring more than 6,000. However, Israel has previously targeted Iranian facilities where Tehran uses industrial mixers to produce solid fuel.

Video released on social media from Saturday’s explosion at the port of Sahid Rajai show smoke with a reddish hue emerging from the fire shortly before the explosion, indicating a chemical union involved.

On Saturday night, the state -run IRNA news agency reported that the Iranian customs agency attributed the explosion to “storage of dangerous goods and chemicals in the port area”, without giving further details.