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Earthquakes in Turkey and Syria live updates: Death toll soars past 5,000
Thousands of people are dead in Turkey and Syria after two powerful earthquakes rocked the region. Follow live coverage
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Latest on quakes that hit beleaguered region
The death toll from Monday's devastating earthquakes has soared past 5,000 and is expected to rise further.
Desperate rescue efforts continue in the rubble of southern Turkey and northern Syria, hampered by aftershocks and frigid conditions.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday declared a state of emergency in affected areas.
Countries around the world, including the U.S., are sending search and rescue teams to the region.
The quakes have brought new devastation to an area of Syria already blighted by years of civil war.
Monday morning's earthquake ruptured on a shallow fault line just over 11 miles beneath the Earth’s surface, making it one of the most consequential and damaging earthquakes in recent history.
Earthquakes can originate at various depths beneath the Earth’s surface — even hundreds of miles deep. Consequences on the surface can depend on how close the shaking is.
“Turkey is extremely earthquake-prone, but this is probably the largest earthquake in Turkey in several hundred years,” said Harold Tobin, the director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network and a professor in the University of Washington Department of Earth and Space Sciences.