Hundreds of earthquake survivors huddled in aid tents and around bonfires March 8 in eastern Turkey, seeking relief from the winter cold after a strong temblor knocked down stone and mud-brick houses in five villages, killing at least 51 people.

The damage appeared worst in the Kurdish village of Okcular, which was almost razed. At least 15 of the village's 900 residents were killed.

The pre-dawn earthquake caught many residents as they slept, shaking the area's poorly made buildings into piles of rubble.

The Kandilli seismology center said the 6.0-magnitude quake hit at 4:32 a.m. near the village of Basyurt in a remote, sparsely populated area of Elazig province, some 550 km from the capital Ankara.