Witnesses in Dili say residents ran out of their houses in panic, with many staying outside in fear of aftershocks.
Indonesia's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency put the quake's magnitude at 6.2 with a depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles).
Indonesia and East Timor are prone to seismic upheaval due to their location on the Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.