Wednesday, September 23, 2020

Large fire breaks out in factory outside Tehran

A fire breaks out in a factory outside of Tehran, Iran on September 22, 2020. (Screencapture/Twitter)

A large fire erupted in an Iranian dairy factory near Tehran on Tuesday night, Iranian State television reported.

The cause of the fire was under investigation and no casualties were reported.

The fire is the latest in a series of mysterious blasts and blazes that have occurred in recent months throughout Iran.

The most recent occurred on September 11, when a huge explosion in a battery workshop southwest of Tehran killed one person and damaged dozens of cars and buildings, according to Iranian media.

While many of the incidents have been blamed on Iran’s crumbling infrastructure, speculation has swirled that Israel or the US could have been behind some of the blasts, particularly a July 2 explosion at the Natanz nuclear facility.

That explosion damaged an advanced centrifuge development and assembly plant. It has been reported by some experts to have significantly set back Iran’s nuclear program.

According to a New York Times report, the blast was most likely the result of a bomb planted at the facility, potentially at a strategic gas line. The report did not rule out the possibility that a cyberattack was used to cause a malfunction that led to the explosion.