A moderate earthquake measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale shook the eastern Turkish province of Elazig on Wednesday, injuring four people, state-run Anatolian news agency said. It reported local military police as saying those hurt had been struck when a wall collapsed. A police building, village mosque and houses in several villages suffered damage. Earlier Anatolian reported that one person had died. The Kandilli earthquake monitoring centre said the quake struck at 6.48 pm (1548 GMT) with its epicentre in the Sivrice district. The Red Crescent organisation has sent humanitarian aid to the quake area, where villagers were waiting outside buildings, too scared to go inside, the agency said. Earthquakes are common in Turkey, which is criss-crossed by geological fault lines. A quake in eastern Turkey killed 18 people on July 2. A massive quake in August 1999 killed 18,000 people in an industrial area of northwestern Turkey near Istanbul.
