Moderate quake shakes Turkish capital

Moderate earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.5 shakes the Turkish capital. However there are no immediate reports of casualties.

A moderate earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.5 shook the Turkish capital early on Thursday, rocking beds and swaying wardrobes, waking up residents from their sleep, authorities said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

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The epicenter of the quake, which hit at 0147 am (local time), was in the town of Bala, some 80 kilometers south of Ankara, said Dogan Kalafat, an official from the Istanbul-based Kandilli observatory.

A magnitude 5.7 temblor had also rocked Bala on last Thursday, damaging around 20 houses and bringing down a minaret of a mosque in an abandoned village, Saripinar, near the town of Bala.

Gov Kemal Onal said there were no immediate reports of any casualties in the quake.

"We are trying to reach villages," Onal said.

Earthquakes are frequent in Turkey, much of which lies atop the active North Anatolian fault, though they are rare in the capital.

Two devastating earthquakes killed about 18,000 people in northwestern Turkey in 1999. In 2003, a school dormitory collapsed following a 6.