HERAT, Afghanistan (AP) – A fuel tanker exploded Saturday during the Islam Qala crossing in the western province of Herat in Afghanistan on the Iranian border, injuring at least seven people and causing a massive fire that killed more than 500 trucks with natural gas and fuel. consumed, said Afghan officials and Iranian state media.
It was not immediately clear what caused the blast. Wahid Qatali, the provincial governor of Herat, said Afghan first responders did not have the resources to put out the massive fire and had asked for aid from Iran in the form of firefighters.
“For now, we can’t even talk about the victims,” Qatali told The Associated Press.
The intensity of the flames meant that ambulances had difficulty reaching the injured or getting close to the site of the blast, said Mohammad Rafiq Shirzy, spokesman for the regional hospital in the capital of Herat, also known as Herat.
So far, seven people injured in the fire had been hospitalized, he said.
Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency quoted truck drivers as saying more than 500 trucks with natural gas and fuel had been burned.
Two explosions at the border crossing were powerful enough to be spotted from space by NASA satellites. One blast erupted at around 1:10 PM Afghan time (0840 GMT), the next about half an hour later at 1:42 PM local (0912 GMT).
The fire continued to burn after nightfall, forcing Afghanistan to cut off power from Iran, leaving Herat in the dark, said Wahidullah Tawhidi, spokesman for the power ministry.
The road between the city of Herat and Islam Qala is a dangerous stretch of highway that Afghans rarely travel at night for fear of attack by criminal gangs. Taliban insurgents also travel freely in the area. Afghan security forces had set up checkpoints and assisted ambulances and emergency vehicles traveling to and from the border crossing.
Iranian state news agency IRNA reported that at the request of the governor of Herat, Iranian “rescue services and firefighters are working to put out the fire in Afghanistan,” said Mohsen Nejat, director general for crisis management in Khorasan Razavi province, Iran.
The fire spread to Dogharoon customs facilities on the Iranian side of the border, and aid workers – including the fire brigade, the Iranian military and the border force – helped extinguish the blaze, Iranian state television said. The Afghan side of the border crossing has its own fire brigade, but officials in Herat said they couldn’t control the fire even in the first minutes.
The Islam Qala border crossing is located about 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of the city of Herat and is an important transit route between Afghanistan and Iran.
The United States allows Afghanistan to import fuel and oil from Iran as part of a special concession that exempts Kabul from US sanctions against Iran. Satellite photos taken Saturday before the explosion showed dozens of tankers parked at the border crossing.
Vahdat contributed from Tehran, Iran.