Iran’s state broadcaster reported that U.S. military strikes hit water facilities in the south of the country on Wednesday, damaging two concrete tanks and cutting off water supplies for thousands of residents.
Video published by IRIB, the state broadcaster, and verified by The New York Times, showed a damaged concrete structure with a collapsed roof in Sirik county in Hormozgan province, on the coast of the Strait of Hormuz.
IRIB said that the facility was a water tank. The Times could not independently verify that claim or what caused the damage.
The IRIB report was published hours after U.S. Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East, said it had conducted strikes in southern Iran in response to the downing of a U.S. Army Apache helicopter on Monday.
Central Command did not respond to a request for comment on the water facilities in Sirik on Wednesday. Hours earlier, it said it had targeted Iranian air defenses, ground control stations and radar sites near the Strait of Hormuz with “precision munitions.”
The strait is a vital route for oil and gas shipments. Iran’s effective blockade of the waterway has roiled global energy markets and become a major source of leverage in its negotiations with the United States on a deal to end the war.
The U.S. military has previously launched strikes against Iranian facilities in Hormozgan. In March, airstrikes hit an underground air force base there.
The two water tanks had a combined capacity of 2.5 million liters, Abdolhamid Hamzehpour, the chief executive of the province’s water company, said in a statement published on its website, adding that they were damaged by missiles.
The water company said that the damage took both facilities out of service, cutting off water for 20,000 people in Kuhestak and 10 other villages in the district of Bemani.
The structure is near the city of Kuhestak. Text painted on the hilltop structure reads: “Water is the pulse of life.” The most recent photographs available from Planet Labs, a satellite imagery company, showed the structure was undamaged in early January.
