At least 5 Iranians dead & over 700 injured after massive explosion shakes Iran's Bandar Abbas port

A massive chemical explosion in the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas claimed the lives of at least five people on Saturday and wounded more than 700 others.

Shortly after the explosion occurred around 12 p.m. local time, Israeli officials denied any connection to the catastrophic detonation, which took place while nuclear talks between Iranian and U.S. officials were still underway.

The port of Bandar Abbas, on Iran’s southern coast, is vitally important for the economy and serves as one of the main entry points for imports and housing key oil facilities and petrochemical installations.

Official investigations into the cause of the explosion are still ongoing.

This is how it started:

Footage of the initial explosion in Bandar Abbas, southwest Iran. pic.twitter.com/2PuqtY2rRo

— Clash Report (@clashreport) April 26, 2025

On Saturday afternoon, Iranian government spokesperson, Fatemeh Mahajerani, announced that the results of the investigation would “take time. So far, it is known that containers stored in a corner of the port – and perhaps containing chemicals – exploded.”

In 2020, the port was targeted by a severe cyberattack that shut down its operations for three days, causing serious economic damage to the country. At the time, the Washington Post reported that Israel was behind the incident. The cyberattack might have come as a response to an attempted Iranian cyberattack on Israeli desalination and sewage systems.

The detonation on Saturday quickly drew comparisons to the Beirut port explosion in Lebanon in 2020, where ammonium nitrate, most likely belonging to the Hezbollah terror group, ignited and killed over 200 people.

Saturday’s explosion occurred near a naval base of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), the regime’s arm responsible for smuggling weapons to its proxies, including Hezbollah.

Israeli media outlets cited several reports indicating that two Chinese ships recently docked at the port carrying sodium perchlorate, a key component of rocket fuel used for Iran’s ballistic missiles.

CNN in February cited intelligence sources saying that each of the ships had 1,000 tons of this chemical on board.

Later on Saturday, the Iranian oil distribution company stated that the port’s oil facilities “continue to operate normally.”

Aerial view of the situation after the explosion at the port of Bandar Abbas in southern Iran. pic.twitter.com/AeecpW25Tk

— Clash Report (@clashreport) April 26, 2025

The Iranian state news agency IRNA later confirmed that the source of the explosion was a warehouse containing hazardous materials and chemicals.

Aerospace expert Adrian Fazaeli estimates that materials used for missile fuels ignited during unloading, he said in an interview with Iran International.

“The white smoke we saw is very similar to the burning of missile fuel, which contains aluminum and oxidizers,” he added, noting that the intensity of the detonation, the color of the smoke, and the mushroom cloud form were indicative of aluminum compounds exploding.

“The chance that this was a safety issue is very, very low,” Fazaeli said. “Especially since Iran’s domestic solid fuel mixers were destroyed recently, and Iran had to buy ready-made fuel likely from China.”