Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant has resumed operations after being shut down two weeks ago for an overhaul, Iranian state broadcaster IRIB reported on Saturday.

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"After repairs ... the Bushehr power plant is back online, and 1000 MW of electricity is injected into the country's distribution network," Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi, a spokesman for state-run power company TAVANIR, was quoted by IRIB as saying.

Iran has faced power blackouts blamed by officials on surging electricity demand during a hot and dry summer.

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Iran was considering shutting down the only nuclear power plant in the country due to the economic damage caused by US-imposed sanctions, the Islamic republic said on Monday.

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According to a Bloomberg report, the Iranians say the Bushehr power plant is "facing the risk of shutdown" because US banking restrictions have made it difficult for Iran to transfer money and procure necessary equipment.

Mahmoud Jafari, a deputy at the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, was quoted by the semi-official Iranian Students' News Agency: "Currency fluctuations and problems related to banking sanctions have complicated efforts to meet the reactor's operational and maintenance costs and make payments to Russian contractors."

The Bushehr plant was developed by Russia and has been operational since 2011. As one of the oldest civilian nuclear power plants in the Middle East, the International Atomic Energy Agency does not consider it a proliferation threat. The brunt of Iran's electricity is produced from natural gas.

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The blast was caused by the wear and tear of a transformer at the power plant in Islamabad, the managing director of the Isfahan power company told IRNA.

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According to IRNA, there were no casualties as a result of the blast, which was the latest in a series of mysterious explosions and fires around Iranian military, nuclear and industrial facilities since late June, including in Natanz, where its main uranium enrichment center was badly damaged in what the New York Times described as a deliberate effort by the US and Israel.

On Saturday, an oil pipeline reportedly went up in flames in western Iran. According to local accounts and reports on social media, the blast rocked the restive and oil-rich region of Khuzestan in the country's southwest.

Footage circulating on social media captured a huge fire at the site, but no injuries were reported. Iranian authorities did not offer any immediate explanations of the incident.

According to some of the available accounts, however, the blast was claimed by the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz, a secessionist armed group designated as a terrorist entity by the Iranian regime.

Last Wednesday, at least seven ships caught fire at the Iranian port of Bushehr, Iran's Tasnim news agency reported. Pictures from the incident showed a large pillar of smoke billowing from the area.

A day earlier, on July 14, Iran executed a former employee of the defense ministry who was convicted of spying on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency. It was the second such execution in the past month.

Iran's top security body said on July 3 that the cause of the Natanz fire had been determined but would be announced at a later time. Some Iranian officials have said it may have been cyber sabotage and one of them warned that Tehran would retaliate against any country carrying out such attacks.

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The quake hit Iran's Bushehr province at 5:23 a.m., according to the US Geological Survey. It put the magnitude at 5.1 and the depth of the earthquake at 38 kilometers (24 miles).

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Iranian state media did not immediately report on the quake. However, the Bushehr nuclear power plant was designed to withstand much stronger earthquakes.

A magnitude 5 earthquake can cause considerable damage.

Iran sits on major fault lines and is prone to near-daily earthquakes. In 2003, a 6.6-magnitude quake flattened the historic city of Bam, killing 26,000 people. Bam is near the Bushehr nuclear plant, which wasn't damaged at that time.

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The state-run IRNA news agency quoted a local official as saying the crash was caused by a technical problem. Abdolhossein Rafipour, the governor of Tangestan, a county in the Bushehr province, says the plane went down near the coastal town at 12:30 p.m. local time.

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"The fighter jet crashed due to technical issues in the Tangestan area. Its pilot and co-pilot are safe," Mehr quoted the governor of Tangestan Abdolhossein Rafiipour as saying.

The purpose of Sunday's flight was not immediately clear. Regular patrol flights are common in the region.

Iran's air force has an assortment of US-made military aircraft purchased before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It also has Russian-made MiG and Sukhoi planes. Decades of Western sanctions have made it hard to maintain the aging fleet.

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