A strong earthquake struck the Lake Tanganyika region of east Africa on Monday, sending workers fleeing office buildings in panic. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

The quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8, struck at 2:20 p.m. (7:20 a.m. EST) and was centered near the Congo-Tanzania border, about 600 miles southwest of the Kenyan capital, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

``We felt the tremor in our offices. People fled their buildings to save their lives,'' said Elmon Mahawa, the regional commissioner for Kigoma, a Tanzanian town on the shores of Lake Tanganyika about 90 miles from the epicenter.

Kathleen Gohn of the USGS said the quake ``may have caused damage due to its location and size.''

The USGS said the quake was located about six miles below the surface, and shook the ground in at least three Kenyan towns, including Nairobi and the coastal city of Mombasa. It was also felt on the shores of Lake Victoria, Africa's largest lake, and in Tanzanian towns bordering Zambia and Malawi, Tanzania's meteorological chief Mohamed Mhita said by phone from the country's commercial capital, Dar es Salaam.

Henri Burgard, U.N. spokesman in the Congolese town of Uvira, said the quake lasted 30 seconds. ``The buildings shook quite strongly. We have no reports of deaths so far,'' he said.

In Bujumbura, the capital of the central African nation of Burundi, an Associated Press reporter felt the three-story building sway in two waves of the quake.

The region is located along the Great Rift Valley, which runs for 3,000 miles between Syria and Mozambique.
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