Strong earthquake shakes eastern Turkey

A strong earthquake shook eastern Turkey today, damaging buildings and injuring five people, two days after another quake in the region.

The earthquake, with a preliminary magnitude of 5.9, centred on rural Bingol province at 3.55am (1.35am Irish Time), and toppled several buildings that had been badly damaged in Saturday’s magnitude 5.7 temblor, NTV television reported.

The station said there was no loss of life, but many panicked residents remained outdoors following the temblor.

Private CNN-Turk television said five people were injured today.

Bingol is 430 miles east of Ankara.

Saturday’s earthquake damaged more than 200 hundred buildings and injured 16 people, according to the prime minister’s office.

Scores of people have people have been staying in tents in the snow-covered area since the quake.

Earthquakes are frequent in Turkey, which lies on active fault lines. Two massive quakes killed some 18,000 people in 1999.

A magnitude 6.4 quake in Bingol killed 177 people in 2003.