Aerial Footage: One of the oil tankers targeted in the Sea of Oman (2019)

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Two large oil tankers have been hit by explosions in the Sea of Oman. Iran’s Al-Alam television network cited local sources in Oman as saying that two successive explosions were heard in the Sea of Oman — also called the Gulf of Oman — on Thursday morning. The sources said the blasts were caused by attacks on the tankers, according to the report. The tankers had sent distress calls to the sea’s littoral states. The area is near the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway through which nearly one-third of all oil traded by sea passes. Reuters, citing four shipping and trade sources, said two tankers — identified as the Marshal Islands-flagged Front Altair and the Panama-flagged Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous — had been hit in suspected attacks in the Gulf of Oman, and that the crew had been evacuate from the vessels. The crew were safe, the sources added. Iranian rescue workers have rushed to the assistance of two oil tankers hit by yet unspecified accidents in the Sea of Oman, transferring all of their 44 crew members to its southern shores, IRNA reported.