Turkish president Recep Erdogan has declared seven days of national mourning after devastating earthquake killed more than 5,000 people in southeast Turkey and northern Syria.

The president in a tweet, said “Due to the earthquakes that took place in our country on February 6, 2023, a national mourning period was declared for seven days.

“Our flag will be hoisted at half-mast until sunset on Sunday, February 12, 2023, in all our country and foreign representations.”

Aljazeera reported that 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 morning, hoping to dig more survivors out of the rubble as those trapped cried out for help from beneath mountains of debris.

Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said on Tuesday that the death toll from the earthquakes in Turkey had risen to 3,419.

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

In Syria, at least 1,602 people were killed and about 3,500 others were injured, according to the Ministry of Health and the White Helmets rescue organization.”