New Delhi - A huge fire engulfed an oil depot in India's north-western state of Rajasthan Friday, leaving 6 dead and over 150 injured, while authorities evacuated an estimated 500,000 people from the area, media reports said.

The blaze at the state-run Indian Oil Corporation depot located on the outskirts of state capital Jaipur started on Thursday evening and engulfed at least 11 tankers containing 8 million litres of oil, the NDTV network reported.

The fire also caused two tankers to explode, shaking the surrounding area, the report said.

Television images showed the blaze still raging some 13 hours after it began, with thick black smoke and flames as high as 9 metres rising from the depot.

Government officials confirmed six deaths but said no foreign tourists were among the victims, the report said. The desert state of Rajasthan is among India's most popular destinations.

The wounded were admitted to hospitals in Jaipur and half of the victims had sustained burn injuries.

Many of the injuries were reported from nearby areas and were caused by the shattering of window panes, officials said.

Nearly 500,000 locals in the vicinity were evacuated overnight and power was cut across the region as a precautionary measure.

Several industrial areas, homes and hospitals around the depot were destroyed due to the blaze and an area within a five-kilometre radius of the site was designated as a "danger zone".

The fire was of great intensity and the flames could be seen from a distance of over 15 kilometres.

"I work in a factory very near to the area. As soon as the fire broke out, we rushed out of our factory. We also heard a couple of loud explosions," a worker, Ram Kumar, told the IANS news agency.

India's Petroleum Minister Murli Deora traveled to Jaipur and said the army and fire experts were assisting firefighters and the local agencies in dousing the blaze.

Preliminary investigations showed that a leak in a pipeline might have caused the conflagration.

Officials said it might be several hours before the blaze was completely brought under control. "The fire is massive, we are finding it difficult to douse it," Deora told reporters. (dpa)