Local fire officials said a natural gas leak may have caused the explosion that destroyed a residential building in the Iranian port city.

The head of the local fire department told Iranian media that an explosion in a residential building in the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas was likely caused by a gas leak.

The fire chief of Bandar Abbas Port said residents of the building in the Moallem Avenue area of ​​the city had been evacuated, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Saturday.

“The initial cause of the construction accident in Bandar Abbas Port was a gas leak and accumulation, which led to the explosion. This is the preliminary theory,” fire chief Mohamed Amin Liagat said later in comments broadcast on state television.

The exact number of casualties is also unclear.

The Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Mehdad Hassanzadeh, the head of crisis management in Hormozgan province, where Bandar Abbas is located, as saying that the injured were being transferred to hospitals, but no death toll was reported.

Reuters reported that a local official told Iranian news agencies that at least one person was killed and 14 injured. Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify the information.

State television said the blast occurred at an eight-story building and “destroyed two floors, several cars and shops in the area”.

Images reported by Press TV showed the building’s exterior walls blown away, parts of its interior exposed, and debris scattered everywhere.

The explosion comes amid heightened tensions between the two countries Iran and the United States and concerns about a military confrontation between the two countries.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran over its recent crackdown on anti-government protests and Washington’s push to curb Iran’s nuclear program.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) denied that any buildings belonging to the province’s naval force were attacked after rumors of an explosion in Bandar Abbas Port circulated online, according to a statement carried by the Fars news agency.

Bandar Abbas Port is home to Iran’s most important container port, located in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway between Iran and Oman that handles about one-fifth of the world’s seaborne oil.

The port suffered A big explosion occurred in April Last year, the incident killed dozens of people and injured more than 1,000 people.

A gas explosion rocked the city of Ahvaz near the Iraqi border on Saturday, killing four people, the state-run Tehran Times reported.

Crews have begun clearing debris from the explosion to rescue people trapped under the rubble, the news station reported.