We all ran out of the house,' a girl told a local television channel in Visakhapatnam.

'We were afraid to go back to our house and remained in an open ground till dawn,' said a resident of Kakinada town.

Srikakulam, Vijayanagaram, Vijayawada, Rajhamundry and Tirupati also felt the tremors.

Immediately after the quake, authorities alerted fishermen along the coast and advised them not to venture into the sea.

'Though no tsunami alert was issued, we still advised fishermen not to go into the sea as a precautionary measure,' said Kishore Kumar, revenue divisional officer in Kakinada.

Meanwhile Hyderabad-based Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), which runs the tsunami warning system, has said that there is no need for panic as a tsunami is not likely to occur as a result of the quake.

'Usually aftershocks are recorded after a quake but there are no chances of another big earthquake,' said INCOIS director S.C. Shenoi.

Andhra Pradesh has a nearly 1,000 km long coast line. The 2004 tsunami had hit the coast, killing about 100 people.