39 people officially declared dead as a result of an earthquake in eastern Turkey, according to data on Monday, January 27.

All weekend, rescuers and volunteers continued to dismantle the rubble in the Elazig province after hundreds of tremors that occurred late Friday night.. About 4,000 specialists and 22 dogs participate in the search and rescue operation, the Turkish Ministry of Emergency Situations announced.

By Monday, 45 survivors were found and pulled out from the wreckage, more than 1,600 injured. Work continues in the hope of finding two more local residents who are still reported missing.. An earthquake of magnitude 6.8 destroyed 76 buildings and damaged thousands of residential buildings. A tent camp has been deployed in the disaster area, because at night the temperature drops to -5 degrees Celsius.

Turkey is located at the junction of lithospheric plates, so tremors are not uncommon. The previous earthquake in the same area in 2010 was magnitude 6.0 and claimed the lives of 51 people.. The strongest earthquake in recent decades occurred in 1999 in northwestern Turkey; it claimed the lives of about 18,000 people. It is reported by Deutsche Welle.