Fischer proposed sending a specialised German team of rescuers and dogs to help locate people trapped under the rubble.

According to a foreign ministry communique, the German government is also contacting aid organisations to discuss deliveries of blood plasma to Turkey.

"Our thoughts go out to the victims, their relatives and all those who have lost property," he said in the message to Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.

"It is particularly tragic that so many children are among the dead and injured."

The quake, which measured 6.4 on the Richter scale, was the deadliest to hit Turkey since 1999.

Industry and Trade Minister Ali Coskun told Anatolia news agency that at least 84 people were confirmed dead and 390 injured in the earthquake, which hit the mainly Kurdish province of Bingol in the dead of night.

Coskun said 118 primary school children were buried under tons of concrete after their four-storey boarding school collapsed in the town of Celtiksuyu.

With some 2.5 million Turks, Germany is home to one of the largest Turkish expatriate communities anywhere in the world, thanks mainly to a 1960s "guest worker" programme.

SPACE.WIRE