AT LEAST 14 people were killed and more than 200 injured in northwest Tanzania when a 5.7 magnitude earthquake hit the country, local authorities said.

Widespread damage was reported following the quake, which also rocked the neighbouring regions of Mwanza, Mara and Simiyu.

Residents of Bukoba said earlier that some houses there had caved in, and Augustine Ollomi, the Kagera province police chief in charge of the Bukoba district said “rescue operations were ongoing”.

Damage from near the epicentre of today's 5.7 magnitude earthquake in Tanzania pic.twitter.com/53qS2FQlVl — NTV UGANDA (@ntvuganda) September 10, 2016

The earthquake was felt as far as nearby Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Kenya, the US Geological Survey said.

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

The epicentre of the quake was about 25km east of the northwestern town of Nsunga on the border of Lake Victoria.





BREAKING: At least 11 people killed, over 200 injured as #earthquake hits northwest #Tanzania: police pic.twitter.com/rDUj7luQz1 — China Xinhua News (@XHNews) September 10, 2016

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

An AFP correspondent in the Tanzanian capital whose mother’s family lives in Bukoba said 10 family houses had collapsed and that the regional hospital was overwhelmed and could not handle any more patients.

“My brother was driving around town, suddenly he heard the ground shaking and people starting running around and buildings collapsing,” he said.





No damage had been reported in the capital, Dar es Salaam, he added.

Emelensiana Benjamin from Bukoba town said houses there had cracked so badly residents were afraid to enter them.

“We fear they may crumble any time,” she said.