12 July 2020; MEMO: The Iranian authorities denied the occurrence of an explosion west of Tehran, according to Iranian media, amid news of a series of recent unusual incidents.
It was reported that the explosion was heard west of the Iranian province of Tehran, and according to Iranian media, there was a power outage in the city of Qods in Tehran Province.
Meanwhile, Governor of the Iranian city of Qods Leila Vaseghi denied that there had been an explosion in the city of Qods, confirming that the news is “nothing but rumours”.
According to Vaseghi, there was a power outage at 10 pm that lasted only five minutes.
Hussein Haq Wardi, an MP for the Qods and Shahriar towns, noted: “No explosion occurred yesterday evening west of Tehran, and the power outage in the town of Qods was caused by a test conducted by the electricity company in the town.”
The director-general of the Civil Defence Office at the Iranian Ministry of Energy also affirmed that: “The power outage that occurred last night in the town of Qods was due to an operational test conducted frequently and I have no information about an explosion.”
A series of strange incidents have occurred recently in Iran, including a bright flash due to an explosion near military installations in eastern Tehran. According to an official source, this flash was caused by the technical explosion of a gas supply cylinder on 26 June.
Additionally, a week ago, Iranian scientists and nuclear authorities reported a fire incident at the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. The nature of the incident was not announced for security reasons, but media reported that it could have been a deliberate Israeli act of sabotage.
