An earthquake struck southeast Turkey on Monday, killing one person, wounding 110, and caused 29 houses to collapse, according to Turkish police, sparking frantic efforts to rescue numerous others thought to be trapped under rubble, news agency Reuters reported.


The latest aftershock, with a magnitude of 5.6 and a depth of 6.15 kilometres, occurred three weeks after a catastrophic earthquake in Turkey and Syria that killed over 50,000 people.


A rescue squad extracted one individual alive, tied to a stretcher, from the ruins of a building in the Malatya province, according to live footage on CNN Turk.


Later, it showed a lady, thought to be the man's daughter, being rescued from the same apartment complex. They were claimed to have entered the damaged building to recover belongings that had been left inside following the first quake three weeks earlier.


A crew intermittently asked for silence while listening for sounds of life within one structure, where three individuals were believed to be trapped.


Search and rescue teams have been despatched to five buildings, according to Yunus Sezer, chairman of Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD).


There have been four new earthquakes in the region in the last three weeks, as well as 45 aftershocks with magnitudes ranging from five to six, according to Orhan Tatar, AFAD's general director of earthquake and risk reduction.


"This is very extraordinary activity," Tatar was quoted by Reuters in its report.


The earthquakes happened months before presidential and legislative elections slated for June, which would pose President Tayyip Erdogan with his most serious electoral threat in his two-decade leadership.


Erdogan recognised the failings of his government's reaction to the tragedy during a press conference in Adiyaman, one of the regions most impacted by the Feb. 6 earthquake.


"In the first days, we were not able to conduct work as efficiently as we wanted to in Adiyaman, for reasons such as the destructive impact of the tremors, adverse weather and challenges due to the damaged infrastructure," Erdogan said. 


(With Inputs From Reuters)