At least eight people have died after a 5.7 magnitude earthquake rattled southern Iran on Thursday evening, just 35 miles from the country's only nuclear power station. The number of casualties could further rise.

Mary Mahan points to a crack in the floor tile of her home that she said was a result of an earthquake in Wooster, Arkansas in this file photo taken August 5, 2013. REUTERS/Jim Young/Files

"So far, there are seven dead and 30 injured receiving hospital treatment," the official IRNA news agency quoted Hassan Qadami, head of Iran's Crisis Management organisation, as saying.

The AFP reported the number of injured has reached 190 on Thursday.

The temblor, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, centered about 39 miles (63 km) northeast of the Persian Gulf city of Bushehr, where the nuclear plant is located, and 7 miles (14 km) northeast of Borazjan.

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It struck at 15:21 hours local time (1151 GMT), the Seismological center of Bushehr province affiliated to the Geophysics Institute of Tehran University said. The semi-official Fars News Agency reported the quake shook the area for 20 seconds and caused panic in the city.

Various local Iranian media outlets reported around 250 homes and businesses have been destroyed by the temblor.

Iran's state television, citing a statement issued by the operators of the nuclear power plant which went online in 2011, reported the facility bore no substantial damage from the quake.

Reuters reported that tremors from the quake were felt in Saudi Arabia's eastern province, across the Gulf from Iran.

Iran is situated in a zone of tectonic compression where the Arabian plate moves into the Eurasian plate. This leaves over 90 per cent of the country crisscrossed by seismic fault lines. Scientists believed more fault lines will be discovered in Iran in the future, resulting to more intense and major quakes.

Among Iran's devastating and cruel temblors:

o May 2013, 6.3 earthquake, 39 people dead, 850 injured in Bushehr province

o 2003, 6.6 earthquake, 31,000 people dead in the city of Bam in southeast Iran

o June 1990, 7.7 earthquake, 37,000 people dead, more than 100,000 injured in the northwestern provinces of Gilan and Zanjan