A blast ripped through a building in the Iranian southern port city of Bandar Abbas on Saturday, state media reported.
The cause of the explosion, which killed a young girl, was not immediately clear. The Iranian state-affiliated Fars News Agency denied rumors it said had been circulating for hours that Brigadier General Alireza Tangsiri, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy, had been assassinated.
The blast comes amid heightened tensions in the region following recent warnings by US President Donald Trump of possible military action against Iran.
A US official told CNN the explosion was not related to any US military action, and an Israeli official said Israel was not involved either.
Footage posted by Fars on Saturday showed that the blast had ripped through the lower four floors of a nine-story building in Bandar Abbas.
The agency said a four-year-old girl was killed in the explosion and that 14 people had been injured. Emergency services were at the scene, it added.
The city’s fire chief said on semi-official news agency Tasnim that all residents from the building had been evacuated and that emergency services were still investigating the cause of the incident.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
