Reuters - An earthquake of magnitude of 4.9 struck near Iran�s Bushehr nuclear power plant on Friday but an Iranian emergency services official said there were no immediate reports of damage.


The U.S. Geological Survey earlier said the quake had a magnitude of 5.1.

�Survey teams have been dispatched to the area and fortunately ... there are no reports on damage, except some landslides in a mountainous area,� Jahangir Dehqani, the head of the provincial emergency department, told state television.

A quake of 4.9 magnitude can cause moderate damage.

It was centered 53 km (33 miles) east of Bushehr, a nuclear plant on Iran�s southern coast on the Gulf and was relatively shallow - only 10 km deep according to Iranian media - which would have amplified the shaking.

Criss-crossed by several major fault lines, Iran is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world. In 2003, a magnitude 6.6 quake in Kerman province killed 31,000 people and flattened the ancient city of Bam.

In 2017, a magnitude 7 earthquake that struck western Iran killed more than 600 people and injured more than 9,000.

Reporting by Dubai newsroom and Sandra Maler in Washington; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman, Leslie Adler and Michael Perry