The US Geological Survey said the epicenter of the tremor, which occurred at 1041 GMT, was located 19 kilometers (12 miles) northeast of of the city of Van.

The depth of the epicenter was just 7.2 kilometers (4.5 miles), the USGS said.

The reading was based on the open-ended Moment Magnitude scale, now used by US seismologists, which measures the area of the fault that ruptured and the total energy released.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011