The Iranian Navy’s ‘Khark’ training and logistical ship has sunk in the Gulf of Oman off the coasts of the southern port of Jask after a fire, the Iranian Navy announced.

The public relations department of the Iranian Navy’s second maritime zone in Jask said in a statement that all crew on board the vessel has been disembarked and transferred to the coast after the fire broke out in Khark.

The vessel sank near the Jask port, some 1,270 kilometers (790 miles) southeast of Tehran on the Gulf of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz” the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf.

The military vessel was being deployed to international waters for a training naval operation when one of its systems caught fire near the port of Jask.

Twenty hours of efforts by military and civilian organizations to extinguish the fire were futile as the fire spread to different parts of the naval ship, which finally sank, the statement added.

Khark had been in service for more than four decades and had taken part in many training operations.

Source: Iranian media