Iranian officials investigating a huge explosion at a strategic port in southern Iran have said they found “false statements” in the documentation for the shipment believed to have triggered the blast, which the authorities say has now killed 70 people.

The explosion on Saturday at the Shahid Rajaee port, Iran’s largest, triggered a fire that lasted for hours and emitted towering columns of black smoke, according to local authorities.

A statement released on Monday by the government committee investigating the blast said it had found evidence of “failure to observe safety principles.” It added that investigators were seeking to identify those behind what it described as “false statements” in the documentation of the cargo.

Iranian officials have told state news agencies that the cargo should have been identified as a shipment holding dangerous substances — the details of which they did not specify. Instead, the officials said, the shipment was classified and stored in the port as a container holding ordinary goods.

The Iranian authorities have so far released little information as to where and when the shipment arrived, what substances were in the cargo, and which ship carried the goods into the port, which handles a substantial portion of the oil exports critical to supporting Iran’s foundering economy.

A person with ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps told The New York Times last week that the chemical set ablaze was sodium perchlorate, a major ingredient in solid fuel for missiles. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss security matters.

The blast on Saturday was so powerful that forensics specialists were still working to identify 22 bodies from the 70 people declared dead, the provincial governor told official news agency IRNA on Monday. Among the nearly 1,200 people injured, state media said, some 120 were still being treated in hospitals.

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