Iran port blast toll revised to 57 dead as arrests widen probe
Event date: 2025-05-04
Iranian authorities have revised the death toll from the explosion at Shahid Rajaee port in southern Iran to 57, while saying more than 1,000 people were injured and that two people, including a government official, have been arrested in connection with the case.
The updated figures, reported by state television and cited by Arab News, show how the scale of the disaster at the country’s main commercial port has continued to evolve more than a week after the April 26 blast. The judiciary said the death toll had been lowered after investigators determined that some of the bodies earlier counted separately were in fact parts of a single body. Officials said the toll could still change.
The latest developments add a criminal and administrative angle to a disaster that has already become one of Iran’s deadliest industrial accidents in recent years. Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni has blamed shortcomings, including a failure to follow safety precautions and negligence. Investigators have also said false declarations of goods were made in some cases.
The port sits near Bandar Abbas on the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping route through which a large share of global oil moves. That geography has drawn additional scrutiny because of the possibility that the cargo involved was not ordinary freight. The New York Times has reported, citing a person with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, that sodium perchlorate, a chemical used in missile propellant, may have been involved. Iran’s defense ministry spokesman has denied that military fuel or military-use cargo was being imported or exported in the area.
So far, the official line has stopped short of giving a final explanation for the blast. But the arrests indicate that authorities are moving beyond casualty accounting and into questions of responsibility, customs practice and possible regulatory breaches.
Shahid Rajaee is Iran’s most important commercial port, handling a large share of the country’s non-oil trade. A fire there can quickly become a national crisis, not only because of the volume of cargo moving through the terminal but because of the implications for shipping, insurance and supply chains.
The revised toll and the arrests together suggest the investigation is likely to remain politically sensitive. The government must reconcile competing narratives: one focused on negligence and port controls, another on possible military-related material, and a third on whether the deaths and injuries were worsened by failures in handling or storage.
For now, officials have not publicly identified the arrested individuals or said what charges they may face. The judiciary has also not ruled out another revision to the casualty count. In a disaster of this size, even the basic numbers remain part of the story.
