The state television channel TRT Haber showed images of several collapsed buildings and rescue workers searching through the rubble after the tremor struck at 9.23pm local time. At least 100 people were believed to be trapped, with one reporter saying up to 70 people may have been staying at one of the hotels.
Panicked residents could be seen running through the streets and ambulances rushed through the town with their sirens wailing.
In a grim replay of scenes from last month's quake in the same region, men climbed onto piles of debris and frantically clawed at twisted steel and crumbled concrete in an attempt to find survivors.
Voices could be heard calling for help from under the debris.
Sky Turk television said one hotel was being used by journalists and aid workers. It was not clear how many people were inside, but 11 had been brought out alive, NTV television reported.
Ozgur Gunes, a journalist with Cihan news agency, was staying at the hotel but had just left the building when the earthquake struck Wednesday night. He said there were journalists working in the lobby at the time.
"There were some small cracks, but we were told that there was no structural damage," he told Sky Turk television.
The Turkish Red Crescent immediately dispatched 15,000 tents and some 300 rescue workers.
About 1,400 aftershocks have rocked the region since the first earthquake hit the province on Oct 23.
At least 2,000 buildings were destroyed and authorities declared another 3,700 buildings unfit for habitation. There was a huge rescue operation after the October quake, as teams searched around the clock for survivors among dozens of flattened buildings and aid groups scrambled to set up tents, field hospitals and kitchens to help the homeless.
“Our estimate is for hundreds of lives lost. It could be 500 or 1,000,” Mustafa Erdik, the general manager of the Kandilli Observatory, said at the time.
The airport in Van was also damaged, meaning planes were diverted to nearby cities and relief teams were forced to travel by road.
October’s earthquake had a relatively shallow depth of 12.2 miles, according to the US Geological Survey, which made the damage worse.
Ercis, a town near Van, was hardest hit with at least 55 destroyed buildings, 45 dead and 156 injured.
Many homes collapsed along the town’s main road, raising the possibility of a higher death toll. In smaller villages near the epicentre, the shaking demolished almost all the brick houses.
In the city centre of Van, at least 100 people were confirmed dead, and 970 buildings collapsed. About 200 inmates escaped after the walls of a prison succumbed to the shaking, although 50 were quickly recaptured.
In one rare moment of joy, a two-week-old baby was rescued alive from the rubble of a collapsed building on, 46 hours after the October earthquake struck.
Van province lies several hundred miles east of the East Anatolian fault, one of Turkey’s most seismically active regions.
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