Three dead as quake stirs panic in Algiers

Three people were killed and hundreds injured as panic gripped areas of the Algerian capital when an earthquake of 5.6 magnitude struck offshore early yesterday, an emergency official said.
The crisis team member said two people had died after jumping off their balconies -- a woman in Algiers and a man in Rouiba, east of the capital.
They had been roused from their sleep by the tremor.
A third person died of cardiac arrest, the official told AFP, adding that 388 people were injured, almost of whom were sent home after receiving first aid. Five were kept in hospital with fractures.
Civil defence official Colonel Farouk Ashur said earlier that many residents in Algiers and Boumerdes, to the east, rushed out into the streets, fearing their buildings might collapse.
But there was no significant damage caused by the quake, which hit at 5:11 am (0411 GMT), Ashur said.
The epicentre was 19 kilometres (11 miles) off the coast of the western district of Bologhine, said the Algerian centre for research in astrophysics and geophysics, CRAAG.
It also reported five lower magnitude aftershocks.
"This earthquake is part the normal seismic activity of Algeria, which sits on two major plates. Algeria records 100 earthquakes a month but most are not felt," CRAAG researcher Kamel Lamali told AFP.
A 2003 earthquake that hit Boumerdes killed nearly 3,000 people.