Women and childrens look at a collapsed building in Karliova village
Time is GMT + 8 hours Posted: 13 March 2005 0426 hrs
ANKARA : At least 16 people were hurt and dozens of buildings were damaged in eastern Turkey when an earthquake measuring 5.7 on the Richter scale shook the region, officials said.
The epicenter of the tremor, which struck at 9:36 am (0736 GMT), was at the town of Karliova in Bingol province, according to the Istanbul-based Kandilli observatory.
Fifteen people were hospitalized in Karliova with minor injuries and another person was hurt in the neighboring province of Erzurum, where the tremor was also felt, local officials told Anatolia news agency.
About 130 buildings were damaged in the region.
Barns collapsed and animals perished in six villages, Bingol Governor Vehbi Avuc said, adding that heavy snowfall in the past two days was causing difficulties in communication with remote villages in the mountainous region.
The tremor caused panic in Karliova, sending residents into snow-covered streets, television footage showed.
Quakes of such a magnitude have claimed lives in Turkey.
A quake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale killed 176 people in Bingol province in May 2003, almost half of them children sleeping in a boarding school.
In Erzurum, an avalanche triggered by Saturday's tremor blocked for several hours the main road linking the same-name provincial capital and the town of Cat, Anatolia reported.
The quake was also felt in the neighboring provinces of Diyarbakir, Mus and Tunceli.
The authorities dispatched search-and-rescue teams to the region, while the Turkish Red Crescent sent tents and other humanitarian supplies.
Earthquakes are frequent in Turkey, which is crossed by several seismological faultlines. Some 20,000 people perished in two massive tremors in August and November 1999.
- AFP Earthquake in eastern Turkey injures 16, causes damage