An explosion rocked a factory outside Tehran early Tuesday morning, killing two people and injuring three others, Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency has reported.
The blast was said to have taken place at the Oxijen plant in Baqershahr, and industrial zone about 23 km south of Iran's capital, with local administrator Amin Babaei saying the explosion was caused by "workers being negligent while filling oxygen tanks".
"The explosion...was so powerful that the walls of the Saipapress factory nearby were also totally destroyed," Babaei added.
The blast reportedly took place just after 3 am local time, with firefighters arriving on the scene shortly after the fire began, preventing it from spreading to nearby factories.
Also on Tuesday, authorities in Ahvaz, southwestern Iran reported that a gas explosion had taken place in a sewing workshop, with five women injured and taken to hospital. The explosion followed a blast in a residential area of Ahvaz last week which injured two.
String of Blasts Across Iran
The pair of incidents are the latest in a string of blasts across the country in recent days.
On 4 July, a fire broke out at a power plant in Ahvaz, resulting in temporary partial power outages in the city. The same day, a chlorine gas leak took place at the Karoon petrochemicals plant near the port of Bandar Imam Khomeini, 60 km south of Ahvaz. 70 people were treated for chlorine inhalation following that incident.
Before that, on 30 June, a gas explosion took place at a medical clinic in northern Tehran, killing at least 19 people.
On 25 June, a major gas storage facility went up in flames outside Tehran near a military facility. No casualties were reported in that blast.
