It is generally believed that the Earth's rotation has negligible impact on the water circulation in basins which are very narrow or located near the Equator. However, herein evidence is presented of the influence of the Earth's rotation on the hydrodynamics of Lake Tanganyika, which is both very narrow (width/length ≈ 0.08) and located near the Equator. Numerical simulations exhibit small upwellings at the western shores as a result of the thermocline oscillations induced by the southeasterly winds of the dry season. These structures tend to propagate cyclonically around the lake similar to internal Kelvin waves. Numerical experiments in which f is varied concludes that internal Kelvin waves are present in Lake Tanganyika. It is also evidenced from this study that the internal Kelvin waves cannot be anticipated based on classic scaling arguments.