By Agencies

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Search operations have been called off in eastern Turkey after an earthquake claimed scores of lives in six villages.

The government said 51 people had been killed and dozens hospitalised after the quake struck in Elazig province early on Monday.

About eight hours after the 6.0 magnitude quake, the search for victims ended.

"According to the information we have, no one remains under the rubble. The work has been ended," an official from the governor's office told the news agency AFP.

As night fell and the temperature dropped close to freezing, hundreds of survivors huddled around stoves in the entrance of tents distributed by the Red Crescent.

The ground kept shaking with more than 84 aftershocks, the largest of which had a magnitude of 5.5.

Mud-brick houses

Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, blamed the region's mud-brick buildings for the many deaths and said the government housing agency will build quake-proof homes in the area.

The quake was centred on the village of Basyurt, near the town of Kovancilar, and caught many people in their sleep.

Worst-hit was the Kurdish village of Okcular, where at least 15 of the 900 residents were killed and about 30 houses destroyed.

"The village is totally flattened," Hasan Demirdag, Okcular's administrator, told NTV television.

Graves were quickly dug and by the end of Monday afternoon all of the dead were buried following brief prayers at a village mosque that was missing part of its minaret after the tremor.

Livestock killed

The quake killed many livestock, the main livelihood for locals in the impoverished region.

The quake was felt in neighbouring provinces of Tunceli, Bingol and Diyarbakir where residents fled to the streets in panic and spent the night outdoors.

Deadly earthquakes are frequent in Turkey,which is crossed by several active fault-lines.

Two powerful quakes in the heavily populated northwest claimed about 20,000 lives in August and November 1999.

In 2003, an earthquake measuring 6.4 brought down a school dormitory in the neighbouring province of Bingol province, killing 83 children

In 2007, an earthquake measuring 5.7 damaged buildings in Elazig.