Turkey quake kills nine
ISTANBUL, Turkey (CNN) -- An earthquake has struck an eastern Turkish village, killing at least nine people -- mostly children -- and injuring about 44 others, according to officials.
The quake, with a magnitude of at least 5.1, struck the village on the outskirts of Erzurum around 11:30 p.m. (2130 GMT) Thursday, according to the city's governor Mustafa Malay.
Video of the scene on CNN Turk showed bulldozers and workers digging through heaps of rubble.
The quake leveled a primary school in the region, killing at least one child underneath the wreckage, Malay said.
The Red Cross has sent aid workers to the area, Malay added.
The Public Works Ministry said Askale county was the epicenter of the quake. As many as 51 aftershocks shook the region.
"The Red Crescent and military units are setting up tents for survivors... We will solve the accommodation problem as soon as possible," Health Minister Recep Akdag told the Anatolian state news agency.
Turkey is criss-crossed with earthquake fault lines and poor construction of buildings has often led to an unnecessarily high death toll.
In 1999, a quake with a magnitude of 7.4 killed about 20,000 people near Turkey's biggest city Istanbul.
And in May 2003, at least 167 people -- including many children -- were killed by a quake in the eastern province of Bingol.
The U.S. Geological Survey reported a 5.5 magnitude quake struck about 35 kilometers (25 miles) west of Erzurum at 7:30 p.m. (2:30 p.m. ET).
According to the USGS, a quake measuring below 6.0 is considered moderate.
