Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has declared seven days of national mourning, and Syria has appealed to the United Nations for help following devastating earthquakes that killed more than 5,200 people and toppled buildings across southeast Turkey and northern Syria.

Authorities fear the death toll from Monday’s predawn magnitude 7.8 temblor, followed by a magnitude 7.6 earthquake and several aftershocks will continue to climb as rescuers looked for survivors among tangles of metal and concrete spread across a region already suffering under Syria’s 12-year civil war and a refugee crisis.

Rescuers searched through the frigid night into Tuesday night, hoping to dig more survivors out of the rubble as those trapped cried out for help from beneath mountains of debris.

The death toll from the earthquakes in Turkey had risen to around 3,700.

Orhan Tatar, an official with Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), said earlier on Tuesday that 20,426 others were injured. Tatar said more than 5,700 buildings had also been destroyed.

In Syria, nearly 1700 people were killed and more than 3,500 others were injured, according to the Ministry of Health and the White Helmets rescue organization.
President Erdogan also announced a 3-month state of emergency in quake-hit provinces.
"Based on the authority given to us by Article 119 of the Constitution, we decided to declare a state of emergency," Erdogan said at the State Information Coordination Center in the capital Ankara.