Estimate: 10,000 Dead After Powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake Hits Southern Turkey, Causing Severe Damage and Casualties

An initial earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.8, whose epicenter was in south central Turkey, downed buildings and raised the specter of a humanitarian crisis.

A second earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.5, struck southeastern Turkey hours later, the United States Geological Survey said. This is Turkey's earthquake map. "A huge fault line broke between Kahramanmaraş and Malatya. This is the reason why such strong and frequent earthquakes occur. The last time such an earthquake occurred in the same region was in 1513," said one expert.

A second earthquake of 7.6 magnitude struck southern Turkey on Monday, within 12 hours of a first massive quake that already claimed hundreds of Turkish and Syrian lives.

Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority said the second quake took place at 1:32 p.m. local time at a 7km depth and had its epicenter in the Elbistan region of the Kahramanmaras province. The first powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake also rocked southeastern Turkey and northern Syria earlier on Monday.

The total combined death toll has climbed above 3,800. In Turkey, 2,541 are reportedly dead, 9,733 injured with around 3,471 buildings collapsing during the catastrophic incident, according to the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority. Earlier on Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the event as the “biggest disaster” since the 1939 Erzincan earthquake.

Syria’s Health Ministry reported 461 deaths and 1,326 injured in the Aleppo, Hama, Latakia and Tartous regions. The humanitarian White Helmets rescue service, which operates in the opposition-controlled parts of Syria, most recently estimated regional Syrian life losses near 381, with over 1,000 injured.

Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government has temporarily interrupted export flows of its crude oil through the Kurdistan-Turkey pipeline leading to Turkish port Ceyhan, as a result of the earthquake.

The earthquake was felt in Beirut, Lebanon, where groceries fell off shelves. "Entire buildings collapsed in S. #Turkey the epicenter of 7.8 magnitude earthquake in last hour, that also sent shockwaves to Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Israel, Cyprus. We don't know death toll yet." tweeted one local resident.