Emergency workers battled to rescue people trapped in buildings in the city of Van and surrounding districts on the banks of Lake Van, near Turkey`s border with Iran.
Turkey`s Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute said the magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck at 1041 GMT and was five kilometres (three miles) deep.
Around 10 buildings collapsed in Van city and about 25-30 buildings were brought to the ground in the nearby district of Ercis, Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay told reporters.
"We estimate around 1,000 buildings are damaged and our estimate is for hundreds of lives lost. It could be 500 or 1,000," Kandilli Observatory general manager Mustafa Erdik told a news conference.
Cihan news agency reported that there were more than 50 dead bodies at a hospital in Ercis, a town near Van, near the quake`s epicentre.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was travelling to Van and the cabinet was expected to discuss the quake at a meeting called for Monday morning.
"A lot of buildings collapsed, many people were killed, but we don`t know the number. We are waiting for emergency help, it`s very urgent," Zulfukar Arapoglu, the mayor of Ercis, told news broadcaster NTV.
Cihan news agency said that of the dead, 30 had been killed in Ercis district where some 80 buildings had collapsed.
"We need tents urgently and rescue teams. We don`t have any ambulances, and we only have one hospital. We have many killed and injured," Arapoglu said.
Turkey`s Red Crescent said one of its local teams was helping to rescue people from a student residence in Ercis. It said it was sending tents, blankets and food to the region.
More than 20 aftershocks shook the area, further unsettling residents who ran out on the streets when the initial strong quake struck. Television pictures showed rooms shaking and furniture falling to the ground as people ran from one building.
The quake`s epicentre was at the village of Tabanli, 20 km north of Van city, Kandilli said.
Major geological fault lines cross Turkey and small earthquakes are a near daily occurrence. Two large quakes in 1999 killed more than 20,000 people in northwest Turkey.
An earthquake struck Van province in November 1976 with 5,291 confirmed dead. Two people were killed and 79 injured in May when an earthquake shook Simav in northwest Turkey.
(SYS/M014)
Editor: Suryanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
