January 31 – An explosion in a building in the southern Iranian port of Bandar Abbas on Saturday was caused by a gas leak, according to a preliminary assessment, the local fire department chief said.
A gas leak at Iran’s Bandar Abbas caused the explosion, Iranian media sayEarlier, Iranian state media reported that at least one person was killed and 14 injured in the blast, which comes amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington over nationwide protests and Iran’s crackdown on the country’s nuclear program earlier this month.
“This is a preliminary assessment. My colleagues will give more details in the next few hours,” fire department chief Mohammad Amin Liaqat said in a video released by Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency.
A video posted on social media showed people standing amid rubble and wrecked cars in front of the damaged building after the blast.
Reuters was able to verify the location by analyzing the layout of buildings, trees and roads, which matched satellite and file images. Reuters could not independently verify the date the video was shot.
Separately, another gas explosion killed four people in the town of Ahvaz near the Iraqi border, according to the state-run Tehran Times. No further information was immediately available.
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US President Donald Trump said on January 22 that an “armada” was heading towards Iran. Multiple sources said on Friday that Trump is considering options against Iran that include targeted strikes on security forces.
Ali Larijani, a senior Iranian security official, told X on Saturday that work on a framework for talks with the United States was underway, reducing what he described as “the atmosphere created by artificial media warfare.”
Trump told Fox News correspondent Jackie Heinrich that Iran “is negotiating, so we’ll see what happens,” Heinrich wrote in X.
“You know, the last time they negotiated, we had to take out their nuclear weapons, didn’t work, you know. Then we took it out the other way, and we’ll see what happens,” Heinrich was quoted as saying by Trump.
Ahead of reports of the two explosions on Saturday, Iranian President Massoud Pezheshkian accused US, Israeli and European leaders of exploiting Iran’s economic woes, fomenting instability and “providing the means to tear the nation apart”.
The semi-official Tasnim news agency said social media reports that a Revolutionary Guards navy commander had been targeted in the Bandar Abbas blast were “totally false”.
Two Israeli officials told Reuters that Israel was not involved in Saturday’s blast. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bandar Abbas, home to Iran’s most important container port, is located on the Strait of Hormuz, an important waterway between Iran and Oman that handles about a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil.
The port suffered a major explosion last April that killed dozens and injured more than 1,000. A committee of inquiry at the time blamed the explosion on lapses in compliance with civil defense and security policies.
Iran has been rocked by nationwide protests since December over economic woes and has posed one of the toughest challenges to the country’s clerical rulers.
US-based rights group HRANA says at least 6,500 people have been killed in the protests, including hundreds of security personnel.
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