He said that a total of 19 people were dead, including 13 in Elazığ, 5 in Malatya and one in Diyarbakir, and at least 1015 people were injured in the earthquake.
Rescue and research workers were searching for 30 people under the rubble.
At least 17,000 people were killed in August 1999 in a 7.6 magnitude earthquake in the western city of Izmit, 90 km (55 miles) southeast of Istanbul.
Turkey is a seismically active area within the complex zone of collision between the Eurasian Plate and both the African and Arabian Plates. Much of the country lies on the Anatolian Plate, a small plate bounded by two major strike-slip zones, the North Anatolian Fault and East Anatolian Fault. The western part of the country is also affected by the zone of extensional tectonics in the Aegean Sea caused by the southward migration of the Helenic Ark. The easternmost part of Turkey lies on the western end of the Zagros fold and Thrust belt, which is dominated by thrust tectonics. (ILKHA)