280 injured, several feared dead after explosion tears through Iran’s Bandar Abbas port

Mangalore Today News Network

Iran, April 26, 2025: A large explosion rocked Shahid Rajaee port in the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas on Saturday, with at least 280 people injured, according to Iranian state-run media outlets. The cause of the explosion remains unclear.

A semi-official Iranian news agency also said that authorities are concerned that there could be deaths given because of the number of port employees at work at the time of the explosion.

The injured have been transferred to nearby medical centres" in the southern province of Hormozgan where the Shahid Rajaee port is located.

A local official told Iranian state-run news agencies that the blast occurred due to explosion of several containers stored in the Shahid Rajaee Port wharf area. The local crisis management official added that the injured are being evacuated and transferred to medical centres.

A separate report by Reuters highlighted that the blast occurred as Iran began a third round of nuclear talks with the United States in Oman.

Several videos of the blast have flooded social media. Some of them shared on X showed a mushroom cloud forming after the explosion.

BREAKING: Massive explosion hits the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas pic.twitter.com/PDNvcmCVOi

— BNO News (@BNONews) April 26, 2025

A video shot from a dashcam claimed to catch one of the blasts. News18 could not independently verify the authenticity of the videos shared on these social media platforms.

Massive explosion reported in Bandar Abbas, Iran’s largest port city on the Gulf. Cause still unknown. The timing is suspicious, especially just a day after I pointed out it’s the only major Iranian city on the Gulf. Very curious developments today. pic.twitter.com/zQjRploYwr

— Aimen Dean (@AimenDean) April 26, 2025

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

The blast shattered windows within a radius of several kilometres, Iranian media said. Footage shared online showed

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 reported that Iran’s arch-foe Israel appeared to be behind that incident as retaliation for an earlier Iranian cyberattack.