More than 500 people are reported injured after huge explosion at an Iranian oil facility in Bandar Abbas, on the south coast. The site, which is one of Iran’s main oil facilities, could be seen in video footage engulfed in large plumes of smoke.

Iranian state media outlet Tasnim reports that local emergency services have described large amounts of scattered glass and debris being sprayed across a wide area. Emergency services working on the area have said “the port remains in a state of chaos” as precise casualty numbers and any fatalities remain unknown. The cause of the explosion remains unclear at this stage, but local media site Tasnim reports a fuel tank had “exploded for an unknown reason”.

A local crisis management official told state TV: “The source of this incident was the explosion of several containers stored in the Shahid Rajaee Port wharf area.

“We are currently evacuating and transferring the injured to medical centres.”

State TV has blamed "negligence in handling flammable materials” for the explosion.

Local media footage shows confused scenes in the aftermath, with men lying on the ground and the uninjured attempting to provide first aid to those in need.

A spokesperson for the country’s emergency services said that 516 people are known to have been injured.

Mehrdad Hasanzadeh, a provincial disaster management official, told Iranian state TV that emergency services were attempting to make their way to the site of the explosion, while others are attempting to safely evacuate it.

Efforts are still ongoing to extinguish fires on the site with the explosion believed to have been heard as far away as Qeshm, an island 26 kilometres (16 miles) south of Bandar Abbas.

Rajaei port is around 650 miles southeast of Iran’s capital, Tehran, on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of all oil traded passes.

The blast comes as Iran prepares to open talks on a potential nuclear deal with the United States, for the third round of negotiations over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program

US President Donald Trump, who is in Rome for the funeral of Pope Francis has warned that Iran “cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.”