Iran accused of 'covering up' death toll in port explosion amid concerns of uprising

FIRST ON FOX: The Islamic Republic of Iran is suspected of "covering up" the existent grade of the devastating detonation that rocked the Shahid Rajaee port successful Iran's confederate coastal municipality of Bandar Abbas. 

On Tuesday, the decease toll reported from Tehran aft the detonation had risen to 70, with different 1,200 said to person been injured from the blast. But, according to accusation from eyewitnesses and the impacts of the blast radius, those figures are expected to beryllium drastically underreported amid concerns of escalating interior unrest, sources person told Fox News Digital.

According to accusation provided by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the existent decease toll from the catastrophic detonation is suspected to beryllium person to 250, with an estimated 1,500 injured. 

People locomotion aft an detonation astatine the Shahid Rajaee larboard successful Bandar Abbas, Iran, April 26, 2025.  (Mohammad Rasoul Moradi/IRNA/WANA via Reuters  )

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"The existent decease toll is respective times higher than officially reported," Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the NCRI, said successful a statement. "The IRGC, quality forces and different organs of repression person mobilized — not to incorporate the fires oregon rescue the wounded — but to power the concern and screen up the shipment of coagulated substance for ballistic missiles and the afloat standard of the disaster."

The blast originated aft a cargo instrumentality suspected to beryllium holding sodium perchlorate, a propellant for missiles, including coagulated substance successful ballistic missiles, seemingly caught fire. 

Footage of the blast showed the important harm caused to shipping containers, adjacent offices and a monolithic crater near by the explosion. Anyone wrong 200 feet of the blast is believed to person been killed, according to sources.

One witnesser told the NCRI, "The information concern is precise severe. We are each trapped successful our homes and person been told not to spell outside. The fig of casualties is greater than you tin imagine. My brother, who works astatine the dock, said galore drivers were pulverized."

A outer representation shows Shahid Rajaee larboard successful Bandar Abbas, Iran, April 9, 2025.  (Planet Labs PBC/Handout via Reuters )

One idiosyncratic who survived the detonation told the NCRI, "The larboard and offices nary longer exist."

"The shockwave from the detonation was truthful beardown that it caused colleagues' eyes to popular out," the subsister said. "Security forces person closed disconnected the area, and nary 1 is being allowed in.

"In the archetypal explosion, 15 firefighters were killed. All the unit successful the administrative gathering were besides killed."

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Another subsister accused the authorities of "concealing the statistics" by sending Revolutionary Guard forces and quality agents to the tract of the explosion. 

The subsister besides pointed retired that "chemical and subject materials" should not person been astatine the larboard to statesman with and noted that the workers astatine the monolithic tract were unaware of its presence. 

A outer representation shows rising fume aft the erstwhile day's detonation astatine the Shahid Rajaee larboard successful Bandar Abbas, Iran, April 28, 2025.  (Planet Labs PBC/Handout via Reuters )

Iran’s interior curate said the occurrence apt started owed to "negligence" due to the fact that the cargo was improperly stored, the BBC reported Tuesday.

Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni said "shortcomings, including noncompliance with information precautions and negligence" led to the blast.

The officials besides said "some individuals deemed responsible" had been summoned, but the authorities has yet to admit that immoderate cargo units were holding rocket propellant astatine the civilian shipping center, which is besides Iran's largest port. 

The Wall Street Journal successful January reported that 2 coagulated substance shipments had been sent from China to Iran, though it is unclear if this cargo had ever been moved disconnected tract oregon if further sodium perchlorate had been sent to this port. 

In a gathering that appeared to instrumentality spot Sunday betwixt Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and determination and larboard officials, the president appeared to suggest that cargo shipments should not beryllium permitted to enactment connected tract for months astatine a clip and said organisation processes request to beryllium accelerated. 

In the aftermath of the explosion, Iran reportedly cordoned disconnected the site, evacuating surrounding areas, placing information agents astatine section hospitals and accusing the media of perpetuating mendacious stories astir the explosion.

In this photograph provided by the Islamic Republic News Agency, firefighters enactment arsenic achromatic fume rises successful the entity aft a monolithic detonation rocked a larboard adjacent the confederate metropolis of Bandar Abbas, Iran, April 26, 2025.  (Mohammad Rasoul Moradi/IRNA via AP)

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"The sole enactment liable for this calamity is nary different than Khamenei’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), whose smuggling of assorted materials from overseas fuels the manufacture of missiles and different weaponry," Ali Safavi of the NCRI told Fox News Digital. 

"In the look of this disaster, alternatively than rushing to assistance the wounded oregon retrieve the bodies of the deceased, the clerical authorities — gripped by fearfulness of a nationalist outcry — has alternatively issued stern warnings against the dissemination of news, images and videos of the explosion, threatening terrible ineligible repercussions against those who situation to exposure the truth."