Almost 200 people have been injured in an explosion at a port in southern Iran as Iranian and US officials began a third round of nuclear talks in Oman.
It remains unclear what caused the explosion. A large explosion rocked Shahid Rajaee port in Iran's southern city of Bandar Abbas on Saturday, with at least 195 people injured after the blast, state media reported.
"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.
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."
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.
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.