Strong quake jolts southeast Turkey: officials

An earthquake registering 5.1 on the open-ended Richter scale jolted Adiyaman province in southeast Turkey, officials reported.

An earthquake registering 5.1 on the open-ended Richter scale jolted Adiyaman province in southeast Turkey early on Wednesday, causing some damage but no known casualties, local officials reported.

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The epicentre of the quake which struck at 5:22 am (local time) was Samsat, according to the Kandilli seismology centre in Istanbul.

"According to the reports we have at the moment the quake did not cause any victims," the sub-prefect of Samsat Mahmut Kasikci told the national news agency Anatolia.

He said that some houses had been damaged in Samsat and neighbouring villages.

Deadly earthquakes are frequent in Turkey, which is crossed by several active fault-lines. Two powerful quakes in the heavily populated, industrialised northwest that measured 7.4 and 7.2 respectively claimed about 20,000 lives in August and November 1999.

A measurement of five indicates a moderate earthquake, six or higher a strong quake, seven a major quake and eight a great quake.