Millions of people might lose their lives in Iran and the country is at risk of suffering a tragedy that might be even worse than the Beirut explosions due to the oil tankers that are situated in an earthquake zone, an expert warned.
An oil department in Shahran, which is in the north-west of the city, has the potential of causing a disaster worse than what was seen in Beirut earlier this month.
The Bierut port blast claimed the lives of 181 people and left around 300,000 people homeless, Tehran City Council Majid Farahani member said as reported by the Daily Star.
The tragedy took place because of a huge amount of ammonium nitrate stored at the port of the city.
In the case of Tehran, 30,000 liters of oil are spread across 300 tankers and an accidental explosion at the Shahran facility can cause widespread disaster.
"Shahran faces danger 300 times a day and nobody is paying any attention," Farahani said as reported by the Daily Star while comparing the danger to a hydrogen bomb.
There are at least three facilities in Tehran. Shahran in the northwest, Sohanak in the northeast, and Rey in the south part of the city.
"I can say millions. Much more than Beirut," Human Rights Activist and Iranian journalist Kourosh Sehati stated when asked about the number of people who can get affected.
The journalist said that there are many large oil facilities around the nation and very little is getting done to tackle this kind of danger.
"The government's crisis management is weak. Not enough help to victims in several earthquakes. Buildings are old, and new ones are not standard. Any powerful earthquake is a disaster, and if any happen in Tehran it can take millions of lives," Sehati added.
This comes at the time when the country got accused of covering up a suspicious explosion at an underground nuclear site. In June, an explosion in the capital killed 13 people after four gas cylinders blew up beneath a hospital near Tajrish Square.
