TEHRAN: An explosion hit a power plant in the central Iranian province of Isfahan Sunday, state news agency IRNA reported, saying it was triggered by faulty equipment and caused no casualties.
The blast was caused by the wear and tear of a transformer at the power plant in Islamabad, the managing director of the Isfahan electricity company told IRNA.
There have been several explosions and fires around Iranian military, nuclear and industrial facilities since late June.
A “worn-out transformer ... at Isfahan’s Islamabad thermal power plant exploded at around 5:00 a.m. today,” the managing director of the power 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.
A cellophane factory also caught fire on Sunday in the northeastern province of Eastern Azerbaijan, IRNA said.
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 center, 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.
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There have been several explosions and fires around Iranian military, nuclear and industrial facilities since late June.
The Jewish state accuses the Islamic republic of seeking to acquire a nuclear bomb while Tehran insists its nuclear program is entirely peaceful.
Meanwhile, Iran has halted the execution of three people linked to deadly November protests sparked by a hike in petrol prices, one of the accused’s lawyers told AFP on Sunday.
“We conveyed a request (for a retrial) to the supreme court and they have accepted it. We hope the verdict will be overturned,” Babak Paknia said over the phone.
Iran’s judiciary said last week that a court had upheld the death sentence for the three.
It said evidence had been found on their phones of the three setting alight banks, buses and public buildings in November.
The three are Amirhossein Moradi, 26 and working at a cellphone retailer, Said Tamjidi, a 28-year-old student, and Mohammad Rajabi, also 26.
“We are very hopeful that the verdicts will be overturned ... considering that one of the judges at the supreme court had opposed the verdicts before,” the four lawyers representing the accused said in a statement published by state news agency IRNA.
