Eastern
Turkey has been hit by a 7.3 magnitude earthquake, the US Geological Survey
reports.
The quake
struck at 13:41 (10:41 GMT), some 19km (12 miles) north-east of the city of
Van.
The extent
of any damage or injuries is not yet known, although Turkey's Anatolia news
agency reports that several houses have collapsed.
Turkey is
particularly vulnerable to earthquakes because it sits on major geological
fault lines.
Two
earthquakes in 1999 with a magnitude of more than 7 killed almost 20,000 people
in densely populated parts of the north-west of the country.
While the
US Geological Survey put Sunday's quake at a magnitude at 7.3, Turkey's
Kandilli observatory gave it a preliminary magnitude of 6.6.
Anatolia
reported that rescue workers were trying to reach people thought to have been
trapped under the wreckage of a seven-storey building in the city of Van, close
to the Iranian border.
A Reuters
news agency reporter in the town of Hakkari, around 100 km (60 miles) south of
Van, said he felt his building sway for around 10 seconds, but there was no
immediate sign of casualties or damage in Hakkari.
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