Seismologists said the quake, which struck shortly before midnight, was centreed about 10 kilometres (six miles) northeast of Quito and had a depth of some five kilometres (three miles).
"At present, minor damage has been reported to some homes" outside Quito, the city's mayor Mauricio Rodas said in a tweet, adding that some neighborhoods also reported power outages.
The South American nation is still recovering from a devastating 7.8-magnitude quake that killed 673 people in April and left some 6,000 injured.
- AFP