An earthquake shook western Iran last night, killing at least 66 people and damaging hundreds of villages, according to state media and local officials.

A series of tremors, culminating in an earthquake that measured 6.0 on the Richter scale, struck the province of Lorestan, levelling brick houses in up to 330 villages, said Iranian rescue officials. The quake hit at 4:47am local time (0117 GMT), 210 miles (340 kilometers) southwest of Tehran.

More than 1,200 people have been injured and hospitals in the cities of Doroud and Boroujerd are full to capacity, according to Iranian radio reports. The death toll is expected to rise but survivors said many families were alarmed by the early tremors and went outside to sleep in the open.

"We are afraid to get back home. I spent the night with my family and guests in open space last night," Mahmoud Chaharmiri, a resident of Doroud, told The Associated Press.

A survivor in the damaged village of Garaj, 30 km (19 miles) southwest of Boroujerd, said his wife and children had spent the night outdoors but that his mother had gone back inside after the initial trembles and died in the main earthquake.

"I told her to come out, I said ’Don’t stay stay inside tonight, it’s dangerous’. But she said ’No, the earthquake is over’," Moussa Shaban told Reuters.

A total of 66 bodies have been pulled from devastated houses in Silakhor, a region north of Doroud, the Iranian television reported.

The Governor-General of Lorestan, Mohammad Reza Mohseni-Sani, asked for help from surrounding provinces. Television pictures showed brick houses flattened and iron girders twisted across the wreckage, diggers and survivors hauling at the rubble.

Ali Barani, a Lorestan disaster response official, told Reuters that 330 villages in the region were either damaged or totally destroyed. "The number of those killed will definitely rise, but not very much because people had been in the streets since the first earthquake struck last night," he said.

The governor of the city of Doroud, Nasrollah Rashno, said telephone lines, electricity and gas supplies had been cut in some areas by the initial quakes, according to IRNA, the Iranian state news agency.

Doctors and rescuers have been recalled from holiday. The earthquake hit during Nowruz, Iranian new year, and most government offices are closed.

Despite tense relations between Tehran and the West over Iran's controversial nuclear programme, both Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, and Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State who is visiting the UK this weekend, offered their support for the rescue operation.

"Our hearts and our prayers go out to the families who have lost loved ones, and to the people of Iran, and I shall be sending a personal message of condolence to Foreign Minister Mottaki of the Islamic Republic of Iran," said Mr Straw.

"If you remember, the United States extended earthquake assistance to Iran at the time of the Bam earthquake and I am quite certain we would be more than prepared to do the same," said Dr Rice.

Earthquakes are a regular and dangerous occurrence in Iran and have killed tens of thousands people in recent years. More than 30,000 people were killed in December 2003, when an eathquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale destroyed the city of Bam, 1,000 km (600 miles) southeast of Tehran. In 1990, 35,000 died after an earthquake in north east Iran.

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