TEHRAN: An explosion hit a power plant in the central Iranian province of Isfahan on Sunday, state news agency IRNA reported, saying it was triggered by faulty equipment and caused no casualties.

A “worn out transformer... at Isfahan’s Islamabad thermal power plant exploded at around 5am today,” the managing director of Isfahan’s electricity company Said Mohseni told the agency.

The facility returned to normal working conditions after about two hours and Isfahan’s power supply was uninterrupted, he added.

Fire at cellphone factory

A fire broke out at a cellphone factory in northwest Iran, the ILNA news agency reported, posting video of thick black smoke rising from the site.

The fire was in the town of Sheikh Hassan in East Azerbaijan province.

There have been several fires and explosions at military, industrial and nuclear sites in Iran since late June.Two firefighters suffered injuries while battling that blaze, the province’s fire brigade was quoted as saying.

The incidents are the latest in a string of fires and explosions at military and civilian sites across Iran in recent weeks.

Two explosions rocked Tehran in late June, one near a military site and the other in a health centre, the latter killing 19 people.

Fires or blasts also hit a shipyard in southern Iran last week, a factory south of Tehran with two dead and the Natanz nuclear complex in central Iran earlier this month.

Iranian authorities called the Natanz fire an accident without elaborating and later said they would not reveal the cause, citing “security reasons”.

The string of fires and explosions have prompted speculation in Iran that they may be the result of sabotage by arch enemy Israel.

The Jewish state accuses the Islamic republic of seeking to acquire a nuclear bomb while Tehran insists its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful.

Published in Dawn, July 20th, 2020