Houses collapse as 5.7 earthquake hits Tanzania

An earthquake measuring 5.7 hit Tanzania on Saturday and was felt in nearby Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Kenya, the US Geological Survey said, as reports came in of collapsed homes.

The epicentre of the 1227 GMT quake was about 25km east of the north western town of Nsunga on the border of Lake Victoria.

There were no immediate reports of casualties but residents of the Tanzanian town of Bukoba, near the epicentre, told AFP some houses there had caved in.

"The walls of my home shook as well as the fridge and the cupboards," said an AFP correspondent in the Ugandan capital Kampala.

Earthquakes are fairly common in the Great Lakes region but are almost always of low intensity.