An earthquake measuring 5,5 on the Richter scale rattled an eastern Turkish town overnight, leaving six people injured, officials said on Thursday.
The quake, the third powerful tremor to hit the town of Karliova in Bingol province this month, occurred at 11.44pm local time and was followed by an aftershock that registered 4,7 on the Richter scale, the Istanbul-based Kandilli observatory said.
Six people were injured as they rushed out from their homes in panic, the NTV news channel quoted Karliova prefect Erkan Capar as saying.
Many people whose homes were damaged in the two previous tremors had already been spending the nights in tents, Capar told Anatolia news agency.
Television footage showed residents sitting in the streets, wrapped in blankets.
About 30 people were injured in the quakes that hit Karliova with magnitudes of 5,9 and 5,7 on the Richter scale on March 14 and March 12 respectively.
In 2003, a quake measuring 6,4 on the Richter scale left 176 people dead in Bingol province, almost half of them children asleep at their boarding school when the tremor struck.
Earthquakes are frequent in Turkey, which is crossed by several seismological fault lines. About 20 000 people perished in two massive tremors in heavily industrialised north-western Turkey in August and November 1999. — Sapa-AFP