A 7.2-magnitude earthquake has struck eastern Turkey, causing buildings to collapse and causing deaths and injuries, officials said. The quake hit just north-east of the city of Van, where Anatolia news agency said at least 50 people were injured. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's office said there had been damage and deaths in Van but gave no firm figure.
Turkey is particularly vulnerable to earthquakes because it sits on major geological fault lines. Two earthquakes in 1999 with a magnitude of more than 7 killed almost 20,000 people in densely populated parts of the north-west of the country.
Television pictures showed damaged buildings and vehicles, and panicked residents spilling out into streets. Turkey's Anatolia news agency reported that rescue workers were searching the wreckage of a seven-storey building in the city of Van for people thought to be trapped in the rubble. It said 50 people had been taken to hospital in Van with injuries.
"Two buildings collapsed in Van, but the telephone system is jammed due to panic and we can't assess the entire damage immediately," Bekir Kaya, the mayor of Van, told NTV television. Zulfikar Arapoglu, mayor of another town in Van province, Ercis, told NTV: "There are so many dead. Several buildings have collapsed, there is too much destruction." "We need urgent aid, we need medics," he is reported by the Associated Press as saying.
According to the Turkish Red Crescent, 25 buildings containing flats and one housing a dormitory have collapsed in Ercis, AP said. A Reuters news agency reporter in the town of Hakkari, around 100 km (60 miles) south of Van, said he felt his building sway for around 10 seconds, but there was no immediate sign of casualties or damage in Hakkari.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) originally gave the magnitude as 7.3 but later corrected it to 7.2. Turkey's Kandilli observatory gave it a preliminary magnitude of 6.6. The USGS has revised the depth of the quake from 7.2 km (4.5 miles) to 20 km (12.4 miles), which is still relatively shallow and has the potential to cause damage.
Turkey is particularly vulnerable to earthquakes because it sits on major geological fault lines. Two earthquakes in 1999 with a magnitude of more than 7 killed almost 20,000 people in densely populated parts of the north-west of the country.
Television pictures showed damaged buildings and vehicles, and panicked residents spilling out into streets. Turkey's Anatolia news agency reported that rescue workers were searching the wreckage of a seven-storey building in the city of Van for people thought to be trapped in the rubble. It said 50 people had been taken to hospital in Van with injuries.
"Two buildings collapsed in Van, but the telephone system is jammed due to panic and we can't assess the entire damage immediately," Bekir Kaya, the mayor of Van, told NTV television. Zulfikar Arapoglu, mayor of another town in Van province, Ercis, told NTV: "There are so many dead. Several buildings have collapsed, there is too much destruction." "We need urgent aid, we need medics," he is reported by the Associated Press as saying.
According to the Turkish Red Crescent, 25 buildings containing flats and one housing a dormitory have collapsed in Ercis, AP said. A Reuters news agency reporter in the town of Hakkari, around 100 km (60 miles) south of Van, said he felt his building sway for around 10 seconds, but there was no immediate sign of casualties or damage in Hakkari.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) originally gave the magnitude as 7.3 but later corrected it to 7.2. Turkey's Kandilli observatory gave it a preliminary magnitude of 6.6. The USGS has revised the depth of the quake from 7.2 km (4.5 miles) to 20 km (12.4 miles), which is still relatively shallow and has the potential to cause damage.
