Ankara: Eight people died and others were stuck under collapsed buildings in southeastern Turkey on Sunday (Feb 23) after a magnitude-5.7 earthquake struck near the border with Iran, the Turkish government said as teams dug through rubble in nearby villages.
Three of those killed were children, according to Suleyman Soylu, the country’s interior minister said adding that some 1,066 buildings collapsed in the shallow tremor whose epicentre was in a rural area of northwest Iran.
Soylu noted that Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) teams were dispatched to the earthquake-hit villages in Van to rescue people stuck under the rubble.