The quake, rare for the region, measured 7.5 on the Richter scale.

It hit shortly after midnight on Wednesday, with its epicenter located in the central Manica province, some 530 kilometers (330 miles) north of the capital Maputo and 225 kilometers southwest of Beira, the US Geological Survey said in Washington.

Ian Saunders, project leader at the South African National Seismograph Network, said the quake was the second-largest to hit the region since 1900.

"This earthquake occurred on the southernmost part of the east Africa rift system. The rift system extends from Eritrea, Ethiopia all the way down across Malawi into Mozambique," said Saunders.

"This is a system which splits Africa into two. There is the Africa plate on left, the Somalia plate on the right, and they are moving apart, it's opening up and it causes stress."

Three aftershocks occurred in Mozambique in the early hours of Thursday morning, he said.

"The east Africa rift system is characterised by earthquakes... (but) it's not normal for such a major earthquake to occur here," added Saunders.

Residents in Maputo and in the second city of Beira ran out into the streets after the quake hit at 2219 GMT and spent the night outside, afraid of aftershocks.

"I was watching television when I suddenly saw a chair moving in all directions and it was very strange. I immediately went downstairs and found that there were a lot of people outside the building," said Maputo resident Daniel Fernando.

"It was a horrible earthquake that lasted almost three minutes" said Jashimia Abobakar, also from Maputo.

The National Institute of Disaster Management in Mozambique said it had sent teams to remote villages in Manica province, which was the hardest hit, in particular near the town of Espungabera on the border with Zimbabwe.

"Our teams are still evaluating the situation, especially in remote areas. In main towns there are no reports of any casualties or loss of property," the institute's director Paulo Zucula told South Africa's state broadcaster.

In Zimbabwe, witnesses in Harare and in the neighboring township of Chitungwiza said they felt windows and asbestos roof sheets rattle during the tremor that sent residents running out of their houses in fear.

"I first heard a sound like a huge truck or train approaching, then I felt my bed shake and walls trembling," Clemence Mukweshiwa told AFP by telephone from Masvingo in southeastern Zimbabwe.

The tremor was felt in Harare, Masvingo, Mutare, Mutoko, Kwekwe and Chiredzi.

It was also felt in the eastern coastal city of Durban in South Africa.

"There was nothing really serious and there were no injuries," said Durban police spokesman Bala Naidoo. "There are a few buildings with cracks. That's all."

The quake comes on the heels of flooding that left 21 dead in central Mozambique in December, while tens of thousands of people lost their homes.

The government in January appealed to international donors for some 20 million dollars (16.6 million euros) to help it set up a disaster relief program.

The former Portuguese colony has also been hit by a lengthy drought that has left nearly one million people in need of food aid.

In early 2000, about 1,000 people lost their lives in floods that caused widespread devastation in Mozambique, which is also struggling to rebuild after a 16-year war that ended in 1992.

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