A blast aboard a containership in Dubai reportedly rocked the city just before midnight on Wednesday.

The city government's media office said a container on an unnamed ship exploded at Jebel Ali Port in a social media post at 12:23am local time on Thursday (2023 GMT on Wednesday). Approximately 20 minutes later it had been brought under control, the office said.

"No casualities [sic] have been reported," the city said in a tweet.

Videos posted by the city shows water arcing over a set of stacked containers onto a blaze alongside burnt out containers and burning wreckage.

Other, unconfirmed videos circulating social media and purporting to show the explosion from a distance show a plume of flames shooting upward before dissipating.

According to the Associated Press, witnesses reported the blast shook buildings across the city.

The newswire said neighbourhoods as far away as 25 km felt the blast.

Mona al-Marri, director general of the Dubai Media Office, told Saudi-owned television station Al-Arabiya that the incident "could happen anywhere in the world", the Associated Press reported.

She reportedly said the cause of the fire is being investigated.

It is unclear if there is any damage to the port, which is run by DP World.

The company referred questions to the city government media office.

There have been several high-profile containership fires in recent years, including the 2,743-teu X-Press Pearl (built 2021) blast off Sri Lanka.

The X-Press Pearl explosion caused ecological issues in Sri Lanka, with debris spreading across 150 km of the island country's shores.