The epicentre of the 1227 GMT quake was about 25 kilometres 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.
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