ANKARA, May 1 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - At least 150 people died and more than 300 were injured when an earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale hit Turkey's eastern province of Bingol early Thursday, May 1, Housing Minister Zeki Ergezen told private NTV television.

The minister said considerable damage had been wrought in the province, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.

Ergezen said 135 primary school students were buried after their boarding school collapsed in Celtiksuyu, a dozen kilometers (seven miles) from the provincial capital.

But 50 of the children had been rescued, the semi-official Anatolia news agency said quoting deputy Bingol governor Huseyin Oner.

At least seven buildings collapsed in the center of Bingol, NTV said.

The quake, also felt in several neighboring provinces, occurred at 3:27 am (0037 GMT) and caused "considerable" damage, TRT public television said.

Many injured people had been hospitalized, it said. Several villages were inaccessible and the electricity was cut off.

Soldiers from the Bingol garrison were taking part in the rescue work.

There was general panic after the tremor, with people rushing out into the streets, according to scenes shown on television.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accompanied by several ministers, was to visit the stricken area on Thursday morning. The Turkish Red Crescent sent in 500 tents and thousands of blankets, NTV said.

Crews work to rescue students, still buried in what remains of the school building, in Bingol, Turkey, Thursday May 1

The Strasbourg Observatory in France said the epicenter of the quake was situated in the Diyarbakir region at 38.94 degrees latitude and 40.90 longitude.

Turkey is crossed by several active fault lines including one in northern Anatolia which caused the death of more than 20,000 people in quakes in August and November 1999 east of the Marmara Sea.

Bingol is situated on the eastern Anatolia fault.

On May 22, 1971, a quake measuring 6.8 on Richter claimed some 900 lives in the province according to Gulay Barbarosoglu, director of the Istanbul seismological institute.