An explosion occurred in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, near the village of Alat, Interfax reports with reference to the local seismological center. The reason for the explosion that occurred on Sunday evening, the director of the center Gurban Yetirmishli called the eruption of a mud volcano.

"When an eruption occurs on land, a certain amount of fire is thrown into the air, after which the volcano begins to erupt with mud lava. A similar process occurs at sea, just behind the water column we do not see the mud that the volcano spews," he explained.

Yetirmishli added that mud volcanoes spew fire only for a short time — about 10-20 seconds.

Ibragim Akhmedov, deputy head of the Department for organizing events and Public Relations of the SOCAR oil company, said that the incident has nothing to do with it. He noted that " the offshore platforms and industrial facilities under the direct control of SOCAR are operating normally, no accident has occurred on them."