The death toll from the powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria early Monday surged to more than 5,000 on Tuesday, according to WaPo. Thousands of buildings collapsed in southern Turkey and Northern Syria. Rescue teams from around the world are pouring into the region to comb through the rubble and search for survivors.

Turkey’s Vice President Fuat Oktay said deaths had increased to 3,419. He said another 20,534 people were injured. Another 1,602 people were dead on the Syrian side of the border, bringing the total between the countries to 5,000.

Two alarming estimates, one from the US Geological Survey and the other from the World Health Organization’s senior emergency officer for Europe, indicated that the death toll in both countries could surpass 10,000 and reach as high as 20,000. The high estimates are due to the powerful quake and aftershocks that toppled large multi-family residential structures.

Since the quake struck early Monday, southern Turkey has recorded a staggering 285 aftershocks. A few of those quakes were enough to cause new buildings to collapse, said Orhan Tatar, an official from the Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, who WSJ quoted. Tatar warned:

“Every minute, new tremors are happening.” 

Here’s a map of where the first quake struck.

President Recep Erdogan said the quake is the country’s largest disaster since the 1939 Erzincan earthquake that killed upwards of 30,00 people. South-central Turkey sits on major fault lines, with three tectonic plates sliding past each other.