A massive fire broke out at the main oil refinery serving the Iranian capital of Tehran, sending thick plumes of black smoke over the city Wednesday evening.
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More than an hour after the blaze started, flames and thick clouds of black smoke could be seen reaching high into the sky across Tehran, according to an AFP correspondent.
An "accident was caused by a leak from an emergency liquified gas line," triggering "an explosion which caused the start of the fire that we can observe," Tehran crisis team chief Mansour Darajati told state television.
Mojtaba Khaledi, the spokesman for the Iranian Health Ministry's emergency operation center, told the semiofficial ISNA news agency that 10 ambulances and other equipment had been deployed at the scene. Hospitals in the area were on standby as well, he said. There have been no confirmed reports of injuries or death thus far.
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The cause of the fire is still undetermined, although temperatures in Tehran reached 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), Wednesday. Hot summer weather in Iran has caused fires in the past.
This was the third large fire to break out at an Iranian petrochemical plan in two weeks.
Iran's oil infrastructure is in dire straits due to declining industry profits, the result of US sanctions imposed in 2014.
A spokesman for the Tondgooyan Petrochemical Co. dismissed speculation regarding an act of sabotage, according to a report on the state television's Telegram channel. However, apparent accidents at sensitive Iranian nuclear and military sites have later been found to be acts of deliberate damage.
i24NEWS contributed to this report.
