(CNN) -- At least five people died and more than 100
others were buried under rubble from a magnitude-5.7 earthquake that struck
eastern Turkey Wednesday night, officials said.
The death toll came from Deputy Prime Minister Besir
Atalay, who spoke to reporters while visiting the stricken zone. He said the
deaths occurred when two hotels collapsed. Another 20 people were rescued from
the crumbled structures, he said.
In all, 25 buildings collapsed, but 22 of them had
been empty since a 7.2 earthquake devastated parts of eastern Turkey, including
the area around Van, on October 23. Last month's quake killed more than 500
people.
Eighteen people were rescued, said CNN Turk, which
had a reporter in the area.
The epicenter was 16 kilometers (9 miles) south of
the town of Van, the U.S. Geological Survey said, and its depth was 4.8
kilometers (3 miles). The quake struck at 9:23 p.m. (2:23 p.m. ET), it said.
DHA, a CNN partner station in Turkey, reported that
two of its reporters were buried under rubble. Its journalists' Twitter
messages indicated they were alive.
Video from DHA in Van showed residents and rescuers
pulling a man out of the rubble on the stretcher, apparently conscious and
wearing an oxygen mask, his arms folded across his chest.
It was not immediately clear whether the man was one
of the DHA journalists.
Floodlights bathed the nighttime scene as dozens of
people combed through rubble of what appeared to have been a multistory
building. A front-end loader pawed through the large piles of smashed concrete.
Five planes were being prepared in Ankara to take
rescuers to Van, according to state news agency Anadolu. The agency also
reported an aftershock of magnitude 4.4.
Parts of eastern Turkey, including the area around
Van, were devastated by a magnitude 7.2 earthquake on October 23, which killed
more than 500 people.
By the CNN Wire Staff
CNN's Hande Atay-Alam in Atlanta and Journalist Andrew Finkel in Turkey contributed to this report.
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