KOVANCILAR, TURKEY—A strong earthquake killed 57 villagers in a remote part of eastern Turkey before dawn on Monday, officials said, and aftershocks continued for hours after while rescuers searched for trapped survivors.
People were sleeping in their mud-brick houses when the 6.0-magnitude quake struck at 4:32 am local time in a sparsely-populated area of high steppe in Eastern Anatolia.
“There was a lot of fear and panic among the people. It lasted about a minute,” Nursel Sengezer, a Dogan News Agency correspondent in Elazig province, told broadcaster CNN Turk.