A child was killed and several people were injured when their mud-brick homes collapsed in Kalemie, a town of nearly 200,000 inhabitants in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Kalemie, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, was reported to be near the epicentre of the quake.

"There were a couple of aftershocks this morning but there was no panic," local community leader Fidel Muteba told Reuters by telephone.

"Life has returned to normal. Children have gone to school. Those whose houses were destroyed have begun registering here," he added.

United Nations officials confirmed that at least two aftershocks had been felt in Kalemie in Congo's Katanga province.

"We also have unconfirmed reports of three more dead. But we are carrying out an evaluation with the local authorities and we will know more later," said Michel Bonnardeaux, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

REBUILDING OF HOMES

Muteba said local leaders were working with the UN to see what assistance could be given to those affected by the quake, but there were no aid agencies on the ground yet.

"People are so poor there that their huts may collapse. The biggest burden from this quake is going to be the rebuilding of homes rather than the injuries," Bonnardeaux said.

Congo's Katanga province, where Kalemie lies, is rich in copper and cobalt in the south but poor and dangerous in the north due to fighting and pillaging by gunmen who have not disarmed since the official end of Congo's last war in 2003.

Tremors from Monday's earthquake were also felt in Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania, impoverished countries connected by a string of lakes and mountains, many of them active volcanoes.

Hundreds of people evacuated office buildings in the centre of Nairobi after the tremors.