A powerful magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck Turkey’s northwestern province of Balikesir on Sunday evening, killing at least one person, injuring 29 others, and causing more than a dozen buildings to collapse, officials said.

The earthquake, which hit at around 7:53 p.m. local time, had its epicentre in the town of Sindirgi, according to the country’s AFAD disaster management authority.

AFAD measured the quake at a depth of 11 kilometres (6.8 miles), while the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) put its magnitude at 6.19 and depth at 10 kilometres.

Shocks were felt as far as 200 kilometres away in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city with over 16 million residents.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya told reporters that an elderly woman died shortly after being pulled out alive from the debris of a collapsed building in Sindirgi. Four other people were rescued from the same building.

“A total of 16 buildings collapsed in the region — most of them derelict and unused,” Yerlikaya said, adding that two mosque minarets also toppled.

Television footage showed rescue teams calling for silence as they listened for signs of life beneath the rubble. Yerlikaya earlier posted on X that emergency teams had begun inspections around Istanbul and neighbouring provinces, and “no negative reports had come through so far” at the initial stage of the response.

Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Agency said the quake was followed by several aftershocks, including one measuring 4.6, and urged residents to avoid entering damaged structures.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a statement expressing solidarity with the victims: “May God protect our country from any kind of disaster,” he wrote on X, wishing all affected citizens a speedy recovery.

Turkey, which lies on major fault lines, is highly prone to earthquakes. In 2023, a catastrophic 7.8 magnitude quake killed more than 53,000 people in Turkey and destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of buildings in 11 southern and southeastern provinces. Another 6,000 people were killed in neighbouring Syria.