TEHRAN (Reuters) - An earthquake hit Iran's southern province of Hormozgan on Wednesday, injuring 269 people, the official news agency IRNA reported.

The quake measuring 4.9 on the Richter scale damaged houses and electricity lines in the port city of Bandar Abbas, where frightened people ran onto the streets, it said.

Forty-four of the 269 injured were taken to hospital and electricity was restored. The tremor hit in the early morning.

Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil producer, is criss-crossed by faultlines and often experiences earthquakes.

Last year a powerful quake with a magnitude of 6.1 struck Bandar Abbas, on the mainland near Qeshm island, killing at least seven people and injuring 40, 15 of them on Qeshm.

(Writing by Andrew Hammond)