Three people were believed killed and 187 injured when a new earthquake hit Algeria on Tuesday, flattening some buildings and terrifying Algerians less than a week after a quake killed 2,200, officials said. State radio said several buildings had collapsed in the towns of Zemmouri and Boumerdes along a Mediterranean coastal strip to the east of the capital Algiers that suffered widespread death and destruction in last Wednesday's quake. The capital was also rocked Tuesday. Officials said the quake measured 5.8 on the Richter scale and that its epicenter was in Zemmouri, which is on the Mediterranean coast and some 50 km (30 miles) east of Algiers. "Unconfirmed reports from witnesses indicated that three people were killed when they were searching for their belongings in a 15-storey block apartment that completely collapsed in Reghaia," said Deputy Interior Minister Mohamed Guendil. He told Algerian state television people had been injured "due to panic." "Some buildings have collapsed in Zemmouri," a policeman from the eastern Algerian town told Reuters by telephone. "Families rushed out of buildings. Everyone took to the streets. In central Algiers people were scared, real scared, holding their children and babies in their arms," a Reuters correspondent in the capital said. **OFFICIALS URGE CALM*** Authorities urged people to be calm. "Don't panic. It's a strong aftershock (from last Wednesday's quake)," said an official from Algeria's Geophysical, Astronomical and Astro-physics Research Center. The latest official death toll from last Wednesday's quake is 2,218. A total of 9,497 people were injured. Boumerdes suffered more than half of the deaths in the quake. That quake, which had its epicenter close to Zemmouri, hit parts of Algiers and towns to the east along the coast. Shock and grief gave way to anger at the weekend as Algerians turned on their government, accusing it of doing little to help the homeless and of turning a blind eye to the corner-cutting of unscrupulous builders in a quake-prone area. Crowds chanted "assassin" and threw stones as President Abdelaziz Bouteflika toured devastated towns. State television said the president had ordered an inquiry into why so many buildings had collapsed like packs of cards. With the hunt for survivors from last Wednesday's quake over, health and aid workers replaced foreign rescue teams on Monday as the nightmare from the country's worst quake in two decades dragged on for thousands consigned to squalid camps. Elite search teams leaving the country crossed paths with foreign aid workers who flew in with shelter, food and medicine. With dozens unaccounted for under sandwiched floors of apartment blocks, the body count looked likely to climb. There was also the risk that disease could kill some of those who survived the quake. Health workers have been fanning out across Mediterranean coastal areas east of the capital to prevent the outbreak of water-borne diseases among an estimated 15,000 people left homeless by the disaster. **PHOTO CAPTION*** A grieving Algerian man is comforted at El Alia cemetery in Algiers, May 26, 2003 following the massive earthquake that killed more than 2,200 people. (Tony Gentile/Reuters)