At least three killed in fire at Iran chemical plant 

At least three people have been killed and two others admitted to hospital after a welding accident led to an explosion and fire at a chemical factory in Iran, officials say.

The accident occurred shortly after 11am local time (07:30 GMT) on Wednesday in a methanol storage unit at the Kaveh Petrochemical Company in Bandar Deyr, a city in the southern Bushehr province, Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported.

A fire broke out after welding on a barge at the site ignited an explosion, Kourosh Dehghani, the provincial head of the crisis management organisation, told Iranian state television.

He said firefighters had contained the blaze and were now working to cool the site. No further casualties were expected, he added.

Footage from the blaze carried on state media showed large clouds of thick black smoke rising from the site, as firefighting units trained their hoses on the fire.

The chemical plant, situated on a 200-hectare (494-acre) site in the Gulf region, is a key producer of methanol, making up to 2.3 million tonnes of the highly flammable chemical each year, according to its website.