Malaysian firefighters today extinguished an inferno at a major oil facility in a port in southern Johor state started by a lightning strike, officials said.

The director for Johor's Fire and Rescue Department, Mohamad Yusoff Muhammad, said the fire was put out in the early hours of Saturday morning.

"There's no fire and there were no casualties," he told AFP.

The massive blaze started when a supply tank was set alight by lightning late on Friday, with the fire then spreading to other tanks in a depot owned by Petronas Dagangan, a unit of Malaysia's national oil corporation.

The chair of the Johor Port Authority, Abdul Halim Suleiman, said three tanks were damaged in the fire.

"It involved only three tanks, two containing petrol and the other, natural gas. We are thankful the fire was completely put out early today," he was quoted as saying by the state Bernama news agency Saturday.

More details later

An unnamed official from Petronas Dangangan said more details about the fire would be released later in the day.

Petronas has said the depot supplies fuel and petroleum products to the company's petrol stations and customers in Malaysia's south.

Photos published by local media Saturday showed massive plumes of smoke and a sea of flames at the facility, while residents carrying belongings in small bags fled from the area.

Smoke from the fire was spotted as far away as neighbouring Singapore, which lies across a narrow stretch of water south of Johor, while ships anchored near the port in the south of the state were advised to move away, reports said.

Mohamad Yusoff said some 100 fighters from the fire department, the Johor Port Authority and factories located near the depot had worked to put out the fire.