AP:

Iran’s president on Sunday visited those injured in a huge explosion that rocked one of the Islamic Republic’s main ports, a facility purportedly linked to an earlier delivery of a chemical ingredient used to make missile propellant.

The visit by President Masoud Pezeshkian came as the toll from Saturday’s blast at the Shahid Rajaei port outside of Bandar Abbas in southern Iran’s Hormozgan province rose to 40 dead with about 1,000 others injured.

While Iran’s military sought to deny the delivery of ammonium perchlorate from China, new videos emerged showing an apocalyptic scene at the still-smoldering port. A crater that appeared meters (yards) deep was surrounded by burning smoke so dangerous that authorities closed schools and businesses in the area.

Containers appeared smashed or thrown as if discarded toys, while the burned carcasses of trucks and cars sat around the site.

“We have to find out why it happened,” Pezeshkian said during a meeting with officials aired by Iranian state television.

Iran’s Supreme Leader, the 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, separately offered his condolences over the blast — and left open the possibility that sabotage caused the explosion.

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