'I was sleeping when I heard cries of my parents and other family members. 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 towns also felt the tremors.

Andhra Pradesh Revenue and Relief Minister D. Prasada Rao said there was no loss of life or property due to the temblor.

There were reports of two house collapsing in Krishna district but it was yet to be confirmed whether they collapsed due to the tremors, he added.

Immediately after the quake, authorities in the southern state 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.

The 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.

A 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean had devastated coastal areas in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangaldesh, India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives and had killed thousands.