On the afternoon of April 26, a massive explosion rocked Shahid Rajaei Port — known as Shahbandar before the 1979 Islamic Revolution — near Bandar Abbas in Iran’s southern province of Hormozgan.
The blast killed 40 people and injured more than 1,000, resulting in significant human and financial losses. Reports warn that the casualty count may rise as a number of people are listed as missing.
Experts warn that the incident could have repercussions for Iran’s economy.
Spanning 2,400 hectares with 40 berths, Shahid Rajaei Port is a critical hub for Iran’s trade and maintains commercial ties with 80 ports worldwide.
According to the Ports and Maritime Organization of Iran, the port handles 70 percent of the country’s maritime transit and 85 percent of all container loading and unloading.
In 2024 alone, approximately 80 million tons of goods were processed through the port.
The Bandar Abbas port project was part of a massive infrastructure initiative approved by the Supreme Economic Council in the late 1960s.
In 1975, an Italian-led consortium, Italcontractors, consisting of Condotte d’Acqua, Mantelli, Finsider, Italedil, and Dragomar, signed an agreement with the Iranian government to build the Bandar Abbas Commercial Port, Shahbandar, and a new township called New Bandar Abbas in southern Iran.
This ambitious project included the creation of deep-water quays, breakwater piers, a shipyard, industrial and residential facilities, and an extensive transportation network.
However, the 1979 Islamic Revolution brought the project to a halt.
In 1981, Mohammad-Ali Rajaei, then Prime Minister (who was assassinated in August of that year), visited Hormozgan Province. After discussions with Italcontractors representatives, he decided that only a third of the port project would proceed, while the plan to build the township was abandoned.
The port was inaugurated in 1983 under the name Shahid (meaning martyr) Rajaei Port.
Despite its completion, the Islamic Republic has yet to fully utilize the port’s capacity.
Today, Shahid Rajaei Port remains a critical transit hub in the North-South Corridor and plays a significant role in Iran’s strategic geopolitical and geo-economic positioning.
The cause of the April 26 explosion remains unknown, but it is expected to have a significant impact on Iran’s economy in the coming months and disrupt supply chains.
According to the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA), citing the Iranian Customs Organization, the storage area where the explosion occurred did not contain any essential goods.
However, images and videos from the scene show containers labeled with meat, fish, and poultry, suggesting that they were damaged in the fire.
Mohammad Reza Rezaei Kouchi, head of the Majlis (Iranian Parliament) Civil Commission, confirmed the presence of food containers in the affected area and noted that “there was no proper categorization of containers — food and clothing were stacked alongside flammable materials.”
With operations at Shahid Rajaei Port suspended, the Ministry of Agriculture Jihad held an emergency meeting to reroute shipments of essential goods to Imam Khomeini Port in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, aiming to prevent disruptions.
A source familiar with the situation told the Tehran-based ECOIRAN website: “The CEO of Livestock Affairs Logistics was instructed to move refrigerated containers to locations with stable electricity.”
According to the Ports and Maritime Organization of Iran, Shahid Rajaei Port accounts for 8 percent of the country’s imports of essential goods. Last year, approximately two million tons of critical goods, including wheat, rice, oil, soybean meal, and oilseeds, passed through Shahid Rajaei port.
While a large amount of essential goods enters Iran through Imam Khomeini Port in Khuzestan, Amirabad, and Nowshahr Ports (in the northern province of Mazandaran), the explosion at Shahid Rajaei Port, along with the destruction of goods and disruptions to imports, could significantly affect the short-term supply of essential products.
Also, Shahid Rajaei Port is vital in Iran’s oil and petrochemical trade.
In 2024, out of the 52.542 million tons of oil products traded nationwide, 27.149 million tons were handled at this port.
It is also a key hub for Iran’s non-oil exports, particularly metals like steel.
Approximately 77 percent of the country’s metal trade — 6.971 million tons — passes through Shahid Rajaei Port.
Similarly, the port processes 62 percent of Iran’s construction and mineral goods, equivalent to 22.435 million tons out of a total of 36.476 million.
Any disruption in the import or export of oil and non-oil products, even briefly, can significantly impact Iran’s vulnerable economy, harming industry, reducing production, and contributing to inflation.
The port manages 22 percent of Iran’s imports and 15 percent of its exports. In the past year alone, it accounted for around $30 billion in foreign trade — averaging nearly $230 million daily.
Hamid Hosseini, a member of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce and an expert in oil and petrochemicals, said: “No official damage estimate has been released yet, and to my knowledge, the wharves remain intact.”
“However, the container yard and administrative buildings suffered significant damage. As a result, steps must be taken to ensure the continuity of Iran’s trade,” He explained.
“This port plays a vital role in containerized trade and exporting and importing oil and petrochemical products. Without a doubt, the incident could significantly affect the export of petrochemicals, oil, and steel,” Hosseini added.
Mohammad Reza Rezaei Kouchi said: “According to some estimates, over 10,000 containers were destroyed in the blaze.”
“The important issue is that the regulations for container placement have not been followed, the spacing between the arrangements does not comply with the standards, and the containers have not been classified according to the type of cargo. All materials have been placed together, and unfortunately, warehouse standards have not been observed,” He explained.
“At the appropriate time, we will address the issue of why an acting head has run an important organization like the Ports and Maritime Organization for five months and still has no official chief,” He noted.
“For now, the priority is to control the fire at Shahid Rajaei Port. After this crisis passes, the responsible authorities must answer the [Majlis] representatives’ questions,” Kouchi added.
Tehran Fire Chief Ghodratollah Mohammadi said: “Unfortunately, the containers are made of metal, so applying water has little effect — the fire stays contained. These containers are difficult to extinguish, and the materials inside must burn out completely before the container can be safely removed from the area.”
In addition to the economic losses, the explosion caused extensive damage to infrastructure stretching from the port to the western areas of Bandar Abbas.
Manouchehr Ziaei, head of the Hormozgan Province Department of Education, reported that eight schools sustained damage from the shockwave.
Numerous buildings, workshops, and shops were affected, and dozens of private vehicles in and around the port were severely damaged.
The human impact has been especially tragic: more than 40 confirmed deaths, over 1,000 injured, and dozens still unaccounted for. Many of the injured have suffered amputations or permanent disabilities.
In response to the scale of destruction, Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni ordered the formation of a special investigative committee — though doubts remain about its effectiveness, given the Islamic Republic’s history of unsuccessful probes into similar disasters.
A key concern surrounding the incident is the suspected cause: the explosion of stored solid rocket fuel.
According to The New York Times, which cited an anonymous source linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the private firm Ambrey Global Maritime Risk Management, the explosion at Shahid Rajaei Port was triggered by the storage of solid missile fuel cargo.
Ambrey reported that the April 26 blast was caused by mishandling a shipment of chemicals, including ammonium perchlorate — a compound commonly used in missile fuel — that had arrived from China several weeks earlier.
The chemicals were reportedly transported aboard two ships and unloaded at the port.
Earlier in April, Newsweek and the Financial Times reported the arrival of the Iranian general cargo vessel Jairan at Bandar Abbas, where it allegedly offloaded sodium perchlorate, another chemical used in missile fuel production.
The Jairan and another Iranian vessel, the Golbon container ship, are both under United States Treasury Department sanctions due to their alleged affiliation with the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines.
After nearly two days of silence, Iran’s Defense Ministry released a statement denying the presence of any military cargo in the area affected by the explosion.
In comments reported by the Tehran-based Entekhab news outlet, Defense Ministry spokesperson Brigadier-General Reza Talaei-Nik said: “Based on investigations and existing documentation, there was no imported or exported cargo related to fuel or military purposes in the vicinity of the fire at Shahid Rajaei Port, nor is there any now.”
“Some circulating reports are part of deliberate media manipulation by foreign sources, consistent with psychological warfare tactics used by our adversaries,” Talaei-Nik asserted.
Writing on X (formerly Twitter), Ebrahim Reza, spokesperson for the Majlis National Security Commission, stated: “Preliminary reports show that the fire was unrelated to Iran’s defense sector.”
In an interview with the Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA), Saeed Jafari, CEO of Sina Port and Marine Services Development Company, said: “Regrettably, preliminary assessments and expert reviews of yesterday’s incident at Shahid Rajaei Port suggest that this tragic event was caused by a severe recurrence of false declarations regarding hazardous materials, along with the improper delivery of these goods without the necessary documentation or hazard labeling.”
“According to the international regulations for the transport of dangerous goods, the parties responsible for sea and land transportation must declare hazardous cargo before it enters customs, specifying its primary and secondary hazard classes and providing a safety data sheet. This ensures that incoming shipments to ports are packaged and labeled in compliance with the requirements of the regulations,” Jafari explained.
Interestingly, Jafari’s interview was later removed from the ILNA news agency website and other platforms, like Entekhab and Tabnak.
A post by Kayhan London on Instagram said: “Fatal Explosion Rocks Bandar Abbas. Concealed Danger: Highly Hazardous Cargo Misdeclared as ‘Ordinary Goods.’”
“From the very first moments following the massive explosion, public opinion in Iran immediately drew comparisons to the August 4, 2020 blast at the port of Beirut. That disaster was caused by a large stockpile of ‘highly dangerous’ material stored by the terrorist group Hezbollah, leading to over 220 deaths, 7,000 injuries, and 110 people reported missing,” the post noted.
“The Beirut explosion, equivalent to roughly 1,000 tons of TNT, registered as a 3.3-magnitude earthquake — making it one of the most powerful non-nuclear blasts ever recorded. It was later attributed to 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate that Hezbollah had left in storage at the Beirut port’s customs area for six years,” it explained.
“Meanwhile, coverage of the Bandar Abbas explosion is being tightly controlled by Iranian security forces, and the exact cause of the deadly incident — which has plunged dozens of families into mourning — has yet to be officially disclosed,” It added.
“As with many fatal disasters in Iran, public outrage is once again directed at the Islamic Republic,” it concluded.
It is important to note that Shahid Rajaei Port was previously under sanctions for three years starting in 2011. In July of that year, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Tidewater Middle East Co. — a company owned by the IRGC and responsible for cargo handling and transit operations in the Rajaei commercial zone.
As a result, the port was effectively excluded from the list of active ports handling imports. Tidewater was removed from port operations in early August 2014, and commercial activity at the port gradually resumed thereafter.
