A huge fire at bitumen storage in the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas has left at least five people killed and two others severely injured.

Bandar Abbas is about 1,200 kilometers, or 750 miles, south of the capital, Tehran.

Iran’s aging oil plants and related facilities, hard hit by years of Western sanctions, see occasional accidents, including fires.

The incident happened on Wednesday afternoon at the bitumen 60/70 Storage of Geransang Mehr Company, western Bandar Abbas.

According to Farsi report by the IRIB News Agency, an official at the fire department of Bandar Abbas has confirmed the number of casualties saying that the firefighters have managed to contain the fire and will extinguish it in a couple of hours.

A member of the board of directors of the bitumen society of Hormozgan province has said that the fire took place in one of the storage tanks of an affiliated company whose task is to heat bitumen carriers.

In October, a fire at an oil rig in southern Iran killed four workers just days after an oil refinery fire killed seven.