At least 13 people were killed and 203 injured in northwest Tanzania when a 5.7 magnitude earthquake hit the country Saturday, local authorities told AFP.

"The toll has climbed from 11 people deadto13 and from 192 injuredto203," said Deodatus Kinawilo, District Commissioner for Bukoba, the town close to theepicentreof the quake.

"For now, the situation is calm and under control," said Kinawilo, who was reached by telephone.

"Some people have been discharged fromhospital," he told AFP. "We don't expect many more injuries. We'll see tomorrow."

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

Theepicentreof the 1227 GMT quake was about 25kilometres(15 miles) east of thenorth-westerntown of Nsunga on the border of Lake Victoria, according to the US Geological Survey.

Earthquakes are fairly common in the Great Lakesregion butare almost always of low intensity.

An AFP correspondent in DaresSalaam whosemother's family lives in Bukoba said 10 family houses had collapsed.

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

The quake rattled the entire province of Kagera. Parts ofMwanza regionfurther south also felt the quake but there was no impact, he said.

No damage had been reported in the economic capital, DaresSalaam, which is located some 1,400kilometressoutheast of Bukoba.

"It's safe in Dar but we are still worried about the safety of our family," the AFP correspondent added. "The regional hospital is overwhelmed and can't handle any more patients."

"Emergency operations are poor and the government isn't saying anything," he said.

The earthquake was felt as far away as 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.

AFP journalists inDemocratic Republicof Congo said it was felt, though faintly, in Bukavu in the east, but not in nearby Goma or Lubumbashi.