By Tara Subramaniam, Sana Noor Haq, Christian Edwards, Ed Upright, Aditi Sangal, Leinz Vales, Mike Hayes, Tori B. Powell and Elise Hammond, CNN
From CNN's Talia Kayali and Mitchell McCluskey
The death toll from the devastating earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria has risen to at least 7,726.
In an update Tuesday, Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said that at least 5,894 people are now dead and 34,810 injured in Turkey. In Syria, at least 1,832 deaths and 3,849 injuries have been reported.
At least 16,139 teams are working on search and rescue efforts, with additional international teams to be added, Oktay said.
From CNN's Paul Murphy
Collapsed buildings, emergency vehicles and tent shelters can be seen in new satellite imagery of earthquake-hit towns in Turkey, revealing the damage from Monday’s devastating earthquake.
The images, captured by Maxar Technologies, show the towns of Islahiye and Nurdagi.
In Islahiye, dozens of buildings across the city have collapsed. In the city center, a group of residential buildings just west of the Hacı Ali Öztürk mosque appear flattened.
To view more, click here
From CNN's Jessie Gretener and Rob Frehse
The road leading to the only humanitarian aid border crossing between Turkey and Syria has been damaged by Monday’s earthquake, hampering relief efforts, the United Nations said Tuesday.
Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN Secretary General António Guterres, said at a briefing the crossing is “actually intact” and continues to be used as a trans-shipment hub. However, he said the road leading to the crossing has been damaged and that’s "temporarily disrupted our ability to fully use it."
The Bab al-Hawa is the only humanitarian aid corridor approved by the UN between Syria and Turkey.
In January, Guterres described the land crossing as an “indispensable lifeline" after the UN Security Council voted to renew the cross-border mechanism a day before it was set to expire.
From CNN's Lauren Said-Moorhouse and Christian Edwards
When the magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck southern Turkey, its impact could be felt as far as Israel and Lebanon — hundreds of kilometers away.
The power of an earthquake is known as magnitude. On the magnitude scale, each increase of one whole number translates to 32 times more energy.
Turkey is no stranger to strong earthquakes. Seven quakes with magnitude 7.0 or greater have struck the country in the past 25 years – but Monday’s was one of the most powerful.
Here's how strong Turkey's quakes have been in more than 80 years:
From CNN’s Jessie Gretener and Sugam Pokharel
German telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom is making all phone calls and text messages from its network between Germany, Turkey and Syria free of charge until Feb. 15.
The move aims to help the families of those impacted by Monday’s earthquake to stay in touch, as well as support ongoing search and rescue efforts on the ground, the company said in a statement Tuesday.
The CEO of Deutsche Telekom, Tim Höttges, said in the statement that the company is “responding to the helplessness of so many of those affected not only with sympathy, but with concrete help."
He added that many Deutsche Telekom employees have relatives in Turkey or Syria.
The company said it is donating 1 million euros (around $1.067 million) to an alliance of German aid agencies involved in relief operations after the earthquake.
According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, Germany hosts the third largest refugee population in the world, half of whom are from Syria. The country is also a home to the world’s largest Turkish diaspora.
From CNN’s Ana Maria Monjardino in London
The situation on the ground following the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that rocked Turkey and Syria on Monday is “more disastrous” in Syria, according to the country director in Gaziantep, Turkey, for the Syrian American Medical Society Foundation (SAMS).
“It’s a disastrous situation both in Turkey and Syria – although in Syria it’s more disastrous,” Dr. Bachir Tajaldin told CNN on Tuesday.
Over a decade of conflict in northern Syria has fostered “a poor economic situation” making it very difficult to respond to the current crisis, according to Tajaldin.
In contrast, “the situation in Turkey is coordinated through a very well-settled government,” he explained, adding that in northern Syria “most of the services are provided by NGOs” due to a lack of long-term investments in early-recovery and infrastructure.
Remember: Northwestern Syria, which has been impacted by the earthquake, has been struggling since the country's civil war. Several parts, including Idlib, are still controlled by anti-government rebels.
“Yesterday [in northern Syria] we evacuated two maternity hospitals because of the physical impact of the earthquake on the infrastructure,” Tajaldin added.
From CNN's Lauren Said-Moorhouse and Christian Edwards
Turkey and Syria are reeling as the death toll continues to climb after Monday's magnitude 7.8 earthquake, with more than 7,000 people already reported dead across the two countries.
In comparison with other large earthquakes around the world, the 2011 Japan quake and tsunami – in which more than 22,000 people were killed or went missing – registered a magnitude of 9.1.
That incident left widespread destruction in its wake after walls of water engulfed entire towns, dragged houses onto highways and caused the country’s worst nuclear disaster on record.
A year before, in 2010, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake in Haiti is estimated to have killed between 220,000 to 300,000. A further 300,000 people were injured, and millions were displaced.
In 2004, an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 9.1 struck the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, causing a tsunami that left 227,898 people dead or listed as missing and presumed dead.
The strongest earthquake on record was a magnitude 9.5 in Chile in 1960, according to the United States Geological Survey.
From CNN's Lauren Said-Moorhouse and Christian Edwards
Turkey is no stranger to strong earthquakes, as it is situated along tectonic plate boundaries.
CNN’s meteorologist and severe weather expert Chad Myers said, “we always talk about the epicenter, but in this case we should talk about the epi-line.”
Two massive tectonic plates – the Arabian and the Eurasian – meet underneath Turkey’s southeastern provinces. Along this fault line, “about 100 miles from one side to the other, the earth slipped,” Myers continued.
Seismologists refer to this event as a “strike slip” – “where the plates are touching, and all of a sudden they slide sideways,” Myers said.
In a “strike slip,” the plates move horizontally, rather than vertically. “Why that matters is because the buildings don’t want to go back and forth. And then the secondary waves begin to go back and forth as well,” Myers added.
Because of the nature of this seismic event, aftershocks could last “for weeks and months,” according to CNN meteorologist Karen Maginnis.
One of Turkey's more than 100 aftershocks, as recorded by US Geological Survey, measured at 7.5.
From CNN's Hande Atay Alam
Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Tuesday that around 7,500 Turkish soldiers are working in the earthquake region to help with rescue operations.
Akar also said there will be 1,500 personnel addition to the team on Wednesday. He added that 75 military aircraft were sent to the region.
A total of nine commando battalions arrived in the region from the west and four commando battalions from Cyprus will come to the region as well, Akar said.