By Parisa Hafezi and Fredrik Dahl
TEHRAN (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake struck southernIran on Wednesday near Bandar Abbas, site of a major oilrefinery, killing at least seven people and injuring 40,officials and state media said.
Iran is the world's fourth largest oil exporter and BandarAbbas is a major port with oil installations including arefinery. An industry official told Reuters last month thatBandar Abbas was processing 320,000 barrels per day of crude.
The U.S. Geological Service said the quake's magnitude was6.1 and it struck at 1100 GMT (12 p.m. British time) about 53km (33 miles) west-southwest of Bandar Abbas at a depth of 34.6miles (55 km).
Iran's official IRNA news agency also put the quake at 6.1on the Richter scale, after earlier Iranian reports had said itcould be as high as 7.5. Any quake above magnitude 6 can causesevere damage.
Yasser Hazbavi, the provincial head for the disasterheadquarters, said seven people were killed in the tremor and40 were injured, state television reported. State media alsosaid aftershocks rattled the area.
"Fortunately, there was no damage to the oil industry'sfacilities at Bandar Abbas," Hojjatollah Ghanimifard, vicepresident for investment affairs at the National Iranian OilCompany, told Reuters.
Iranian state television quoted a Red Crescent official assaying rescue workers were searching for casualties.
It said 15 people were injured on Qeshm, an island in thesouthern Gulf close to where the tremor struck. ISNA newsagency said the quake cut off power to the island.
An Interior Ministry official told Reuters the quake wascentred on Bander-e Khamir in the south of the country. "Itmight have damaged old parts of the place," the official said.
State radio reported people ran panicking into the streets.
A resident of Qeshm island told Reuters he had heard thatsome homes in villages around the area had been damaged. He hadnot heard of major damage in big urban areas.
Receptionists at two hotels in Bandar Abbas, contacted bytelephone, said the quake had rattled their buildings.
Residents in the United Arab Emirates, across the Gulf fromIran, reported feeling a slight tremor. Bankers and officeworkers evacuated buildings in Dubai, witnesses said.
A number of seismological fault lines cross Iran. In 2003,about 31,000 people were killed when a quake struck thehistoric city of Bam, 1,000 km (600 miles) southeast of Tehran.
In March 2006, a magnitude 6.0 quake with aftershocksstruck the same province of Hormuzgan in southern Iran, causingonly minor damage. In 2005, a 5.9 quake on the Richter scalehit Qeshm island in the Gulf, killing 10 and injuring 50people.
(Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
