Massive blasts killed at least 11 eleven people at a seized Iranian weapons cache on a Greek Cypriot naval base early Monday.

The Mediterranean island's largest power station at Vassiliko, right next to the base, was virtually leveled by the blast, causing widespread power cuts that are likely to last for months, Australia's ABC online reports.

The entire arms cache has been destroyed without trace in what is reportedly the worst peacetime military accident in the island's history.

Three of the power station's four main buildings were seriously damaged, along with the generator's two main fuel tanks, ABC said.

State television broadcast images of damaged vehicles, twisted road signs and debris strewn across the ground.

Huge explosions blew out virtually every window in the nearby fishing village of Zygi, on the south of the Mediterranean island, where seafront restaurants are popular with the many tourists who frequent the resort island, an AFP correspondent reported.

Five firefighters were among the 11 dead, who also included four members of the Greek Cypriot National Guard and two sailors, the radio said.

State television said at least 12 people were killed, AFP reports.

Interior Minister Neoklis Sylikiotis told the state CNA news agency that the village of Mari just east of the base was devastated by the explosion with virtually every home damaged.

Police prevented journalists from approaching the village or the Evangelos Florakis naval base itself, named after a military commander who died in a helicopter crash exactly nine years to the day before the blasts, it said.

The Iranian munitions were seized from Cypriot-flagged vessel M/V Monchegorsk in January, 2009 after the ship was intercepted in the eastern Mediterranean en route to Syria.

A UN Security Council panel concluded that the shipment was in clear violation of an arms embargo against Iran adopted as part of UN sanctions.