Houses crumbled and deep cracks spread up the walls of buildings in the centre of Bukavu in DRCongo, near the epicentre of the quake which measured six on the open-ended Richter scale, as people ran out of churches packed for Sunday Mass.

Radio Rwanda said 10 people were killed 'straight away when a church collapsed' in the Rusizi district of Western Province and 13 others died in Rusizi and Nyamesheke districts.

At least five died in Bukavu, the mayor said, after the quake struck at 0735 GMT (5.35pm Singapore time) some 20 kilometres north of the DRCongo town.

'According to the latest information I have, there are five dead in Bukavu,' Guillaume Bonga, mayor of the capital of Sud-Kivu province, told AFP.

Provincial health officer Manou Burole said 55 people had been wounded there.

Several dozen injured were admitted to the general hospital and at least another 12 casualties to Panzi hospital, Bukavu's two biggest hospitals, medical sources said.

Across the border to the east, Radio Rwanda said 250 wounded were transported to various regional hospitals, and a witness in Rusizi district said public buses were used to transport the casualities.

In DRCongo's Kabare, north of Bukavu, the walls of a church collapsed on the congregation during the mass, injuring 37, including five seriously, priest Leon Shamavu told AFP by telephone.

A first shock, which lasted around 15 seconds, was followed by two lesser aftershocks, residents of DRCongo and Rusizi said.

'People are panicking so much they're afraid to return home. They're afraid of being surprised by aftershocks and prefer to stay outside,' a Rusizi resident told AFP.

The quake was also strongly felt in neighbouring Burundi, south of Rwanda, Francois Lukaya, a scientist at the Goma observatory in North Kivu told AFP.

All Burundian hydroelectric dams stopped, causing a half-hour power cut, a water authority official said, requesting anonymity.

The quake also shook the Burundian capital, Bujumbura, around 120 kilometres south of its epicentre.

'I felt a very strong shock shake my house. The walls shook really hard,' a resident told AFP.

It was one of the 'biggest earthquakes ever recorded in the Kivu region', Mr Lukaya told AFP. -- AFP