Warnings About Shahran Oil Storage; ‘A Catastrophe More Horrific Than Beirut’ Awaits Tehran

One day after a member of Tehran’s city council warned about the dangers of storing oil inside the residential areas of Shahran, the head of Tehran’s crisis management organization also expressed concern about chemical storage facilities within the city.

Reza Karimi Mohammadi on Friday, August 17, stated that so far, the municipality’s crisis management reminders about chemical warehouses inside Tehran have been ignored, saying that the Beirut disaster demonstrated that relocating chemical storage warehouses from cities, such as the oil storage facility in Shahran and the Baath warehouse, is a national demand.

Yesterday, following reports of an explosion at an ammonium nitrate storage facility in Beirut that caused significant casualties and damage, Majid Farahani, a member of Tehran’s city council, announced that due to the presence of an oil storage facility within the residential areas of Shahran, “a catastrophe more horrific than Beirut” is looming over Tehran.
He called the oil storage facility “a hydrogen bomb inside the city” that is built on the “Masha earthquake fault,” located in the heart of the northwest residential area of Tehran, where approximately three hundred thirty-thousand-liter tanker trucks transport fuel from the mega-storage tanks daily.

His remarks sparked many reactions on social media, with many users expressing concern about Tehran’s safety situation. Vahid Norouzi, a former Tehran municipal manager, also posted a message on Twitter, referring to the city council member’s remarks, stating that the safety and technical conditions of three thousand gas-fueled buses over fifteen years old have turned these vehicles into moving time bombs.