Fresh Earthquake Shakes Quake-Hit Eastern Congo

`There are no dead but there are at least 44 injured. That`s only a provisional toll, it`s possible there are more,` health minister said.

An earthquake shook the Lake Kivu region of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday, injuring more than 40 people and damaging buildings already hit by quakes earlier this month, a U.N. and local officials said.

The latest earthquake, of magnitude 5.4, followed two quakes that hit Africa's Great Lakes region on Feb. 3, killing more than 40 people and injuring hundreds, mostly in southern Rwanda.

"There are no dead but there are at least 44 injured. That's only a provisional toll, it's possible there are more," said Timothe Kwalya, the health minister of South Kivu province.

Vulcanologist Jacques Durieux, based in the eastern town of Goma, said the epicentre was 25 km (16 miles) north of Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu, close to one which struck at the start of the month, suggesting it was a delayed after-shock.

"It was less powerful this time," Jacqueline Chenard, spokeswoman in the eastern town of Bukavu for the U.N. mission in Congo (MONUC), told Reuters.

She said buildings in Bukavu already hit by the earlier quakes suffered further damage on Thursday.

A crisis team of U.N. officials and local authorities, already set up to deal with the consequences of the previous quakes, was preparing a report on damage and any casualties.

Earthquakes are common in the western Great Rift Valley -- a seismically active fault line straddling western Uganda, eastern Congo, Rwanda and neighbouring Tanzania.

The near simultaneous quakes that ripped through eastern Congo and Rwanda almost two weeks ago killed at least 44 people and injured hundreds across the Great Lakes region.