An earthquake in a remote, mountainous part of eastern Turkey on Friday collapsed dozens of stone and mud-brick houses, killing 18 people including three sisters and their brother, and injuring 27 others.
The earthquake destroyed 67 homes in the village of Yigincal, near the Iranian border, the Anatolia news agency reported. Damage also was reported in nearby villages in the same area of Dogubeyazit province.
The Istanbul-based Kandilli Observatory said the quake had a magnitude of five. Several aftershocks were reported.
Many of the homes in the village appeared to have been reduced to heaps of stone, mud and wood.
Families in Yigincal could be seen laying their dead relatives on the ground and covering them with what appeared to be blankets taken from houses.
Three-year-old Goncagul Akdag stood with tears streaming down her cheeks in front of a brown blanket that covered her 14-year-old brother and her three older sisters, who ranged in age from six to 14.
”We share your pain,” Energy Minister Hilmi Guler told villagers on behalf of the government. ”Your wounds will be healed soon.”
Residents combed through shattered homes looking for valuables.
An elderly woman wept near the bodies of her loved ones.
Local Governor Huseyin Yavuzdemir said that many residents leave the village in the summer for mountain pastures, which likely prevented a higher death toll.
Yavuzdemir told Anatolia that rescue operations were completed and the death toll was not expected to rise.
The Turkish Red Crescent, the equivalent of the Red Cross, dispatched two field kitchens along with tents and blankets to the area for people made homeless by the quake.
The Turkish military also rushed supplies, including tents and a field kitchen, to the area, Anatolia reported.
Turkey lies on active fault lines and earthquakes are frequent.
Two massive earthquakes in northwestern Turkey in 1999 killed about 18 000 people.
In March, 10 people were killed in a magnitude 5,1 earthquake that destroyed mud-brick homes in 15 villages in nearby Erzurum.
Most of the dead were children who were asleep when the earthquake struck. — Sapa-AP