Industry and Trade Minister Ali Coskun told the NTV news channel that at least 46 people were confirmed dead in the quake which hit Bingol province in the dead of night. Officials had earlier suggested the death toll would top

More than 140 primary school children were buried under tons of concrete after their four-storey boarding school collapsed in Celtiksuyu, on the outskirts of the provincial capital of Bingol.

Coskun said 55 children had been rescued hours after the quake, which measured 6.4 on the Richter scale.

A maths teacher was pulled alive from the rubble, but died on his way to hospital, television reports said.

Live footage broadcast on NTV showed civil defence teams and soldiers swarming over the concrete blocks which pancaked, as hundreds of onlookers and weeping and wailing parents crowded around to follow the rescue effort.

Some relatives attempted to climb onto the wreckage to help in the search, but troops held them back. At least one bulldozer started to clear rubble from the building.

The Anatolia news agency said the cries of the trapped children could be heard from underneath the debris.

Seven buildings, meanwhile, collapsed in the town of Bingol and rescue teams were also working on them, Coskun said. Outlying villages also reported heavy damage, with electricity and phone lines down in many places.

The Anatolia news agency said that 24 people had been pulled out from under collapsed buildings in Bingol.

Earlier Thursday, Housing Minister Zeki Ergezen put the estimated death toll at 150 and said that more than 300 had been injured.

Some casualties were transferred to nearby provinces as staff at the main hospital in Bingol city treated patients in the grounds, for fear of aftershocks.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said thousands of tents, blankets and teams, equipped with sniffer dogs, were being sent to the area.

The director of the Istanbul seismological institite, Gulay Barbarosoglu, told NTV that the quake, which struck at 3:27 am (0037 GMT) and was felt in several neighbouring provinces, had its epicentre 16 kilometres (10 miles) northeast of Bingol.

"Fortunately, this is not a densely-settled area," she said.

There was general panic after the tremor, with people rushing into the streets, according to scenes shown on television.

Barbarosoglu warned people not to enter damaged houses, which were still at risk of toppling in ongoing aftershocks.

"Some aftershock may be as strong as five on the Richter scale. It would be wise to stay away from damaged houses," she said.

The Strasbourg Observatory in France said the epicentre of the quake was situated in the Diyarbakir region at 38.94 degrees latitude and 40.90 longitude.

Turkey is criss-crossed by active faultlines, including one in northern Anatolia which caused two major quakes in August and November 1999, east of the Marmara Sea, killing 20,000.

Bingol is situated on the eastern Anatolia fault.

On May 22 1971 a quake measuring 6.8 on Richter claimed some 900 lives in the eastern province, according to Barbarosoglu.

SPACE.WIRE