The cause of the "sound of explosion and ground shaking" in Sarabeleh, Ilam, is unknown.

While Iranian media reports that on the morning of Saturday, April 17, "the sound of an explosion" and "earthquake accompanied by a terrible sound" in the city of Sarabeleh, located in Ilam Province, caused panic among the people, The head of the Kermanshah seismic network says: "When a sound was heard from the ground in Sarabeleh, Ilam, we checked all the waves and there was no sign of an earthquake, unless this sound was related to another geological phenomenon."

The Iranian Radio and Television Agency also reported that "no earthquakes have been recorded in this area at the Geophysics Center of the University of Tehran."

Saeed Reza Karimian, the governor of Cherdavol County, of which the city of Sarabeleh is a part, told the Iranian state television news network that such sounds have been heard in the area since 2017, but it has not yet been determined what caused the "noises."

The lack of information or false reports about explosion-like sounds, the last of which dates back to January of last year, has always led to numerous speculations.

On January 15, 2018, several explosions were reported on social media in Kermanshah. Iranian state media wrote that “the main source of the sound heard was lightning in the western region of the country,” but some time later, Israeli media reported that at that time an Iranian drone center had been targeted by Israel, in which “hundreds of drones were destroyed.”

The Sarabeleh region also became famous during the Iran-Iraq War due to the establishment of a missile base commanded by Hassan Tehrani Moghadam. Hassan Tehrani Moghadam, whom Iranian state media refers to as the founder of the "IRGC's artillery and missile forces," was killed in November 2011 following an explosion in a barracks near Mallard, Karaj.

Source: Radio Farda