The fire was extinguished approximately two hours later. (Representative)
Tehran:
A powerful explosion in a clinic in northern Tehran killed at least 13 people on Tuesday, reported the semi-official Iranian news agency ISNA, citing emergency medical services.
The explosion at the Sina At’har health center damaged nearby buildings and sent a plume of thick black smoke into the night sky, state television reported.
“An explosion was reported at 8:56 pm (4:26 pm GMT) followed by a fire at the Sina At’har clinic. Medical units were dispatched immediately,” the EMS said in a statement.
“The deaths of 13 people have been confirmed. Six were also injured and transferred” to a hospital, the service added.
Ten of the victims were women, Tehran’s police chief Hossein Rahimi told ISNA.
Tehran fire department spokesman Jalal Maleki said on state television that the explosion occurred after gas bombs ignited in the basement of the clinic.
Some of the victims “were on the upper floors of the operating rooms, which were either operated patients or people with them,” he said.
“Unfortunately they lost their lives because of the heat and the thick smoke.”
The fire was extinguished approximately two hours later.
The incident comes four days after an explosion near a military complex shook the Iranian capital.
It took place in the Parchin region southeast of Tehran due to “leaks of gas tanks,” the Iranian Defense Ministry said Friday, adding that there had been no casualties.
Parchin is a site suspected of having hosted conventional explosion tests applicable to nuclear energy, which the Islamic Republic denies.
It had been closely examined by the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency in 2015.
Iran denied the IAEA access to the site due to the nature of its work, but the head of the agency at the time, the late Yukiya Amano, visited it.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
