Earthquake levels village homes, kills 18

ISTANBUL, Turkey — An earthquake in a remote, mountainous part of eastern Turkey collapsed dozens of stone and mud houses Friday, killing 18 people – including three sisters and their brother – and injuring 27 people.

The temblor destroyed 67 homes in the village of Yigincal, near the Iranian border, the Anatolia news agency reported. Damage was also reported in nearby villages in the same area of Dogubeyazit province.

The quake had a magnitude of 5.0, the Istanbul-based Kandilli Observatory said. Several aftershocks were reported.

Many of the homes in the village appeared to have been reduced to heaps of stone, mud and wood.

Goncagul Akdag, 3, stood with tears streaming down her cheeks in front of a brown blanket that covered her 14-year-old brother and her three older sisters, who ranged in age from 6 to 14.

“We share your pain,” Energy Minister Hilmi Guler told villagers on behalf of the government. “Your wounds will be healed soon.”

Residents combed through shattered homes looking for valuables. An elderly woman wept near the bodies of her loved ones.

Many residents leave the village in the summer for mountain pastures, which likely prevented a higher death toll, local governor Huseyin Yavuzdemir said.

He told Anatolia that rescue operations were completed and the death toll was not expected to rise.

The military and the Turkish Red Crescent – the equivalent of the Red Cross – sent supplies, including field kitchens, tents and blankets, to the area.

Turkey lies on active fault lines and earthquakes are frequent. Two massive quakes in northwestern Turkey in 1999 killed about 18,000 people.