Catholics across the world are praying together for the people affected by the earthquakes that shook Turkey and Syria.

“We offer prayers and financial help to aid the people of Turkey and Syria in this tragic moment,” Madison Bishop Donald Hying tweeted recently. 

A 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked southeastern Turkey and northwestern Syria on the morning of Feb. 6, Time reported. The impact was felt as far away as Lebanon, Cyprus, Greece, Israel, and the Palestinian territories. Nine hours after the first quake, a follow-up quake with a magnitude of 7.5 struck the area, causing even more devastation.

Generally, an earthquake that measures at 7.0 or above on the Richter scale can inflict significant damage. On the lower end, earthquakes with a magnitude of 2.5 or less can go unnoticed. A quake that comes in with a magnitude of 8.0 or higher can destroy a community. But the magnitude alone doesn’t determine the scope of damage. The quake's depth and closeness to densely populated areas also must be factored in. Shallower quakes typically do more damage. 

As of Tuesday, the death total had surpassed 41,000 and was expected to go higher, a Reuters report said.

At least one Catholic Church official has died. After hours of searching, the body of Father Imad Daher, a priest from the Greek Melkite Catholic Parish of Our Lady, was discovered among the many fatalities, a Catholic News Agency report said. The humanitarian organization Aid to the Church in Need also reported that numerous towns and cities with sizable Christian populations sustained damage. Among the towns mentioned were Aleppo, Homs, Lattakia and Hama.

"Our local partners have an urgent need of support, especially in areas of northern Syria where hundreds of thousands of people live in simple refuges and now, with the earthquakes, are even more defenseless," Oliver Hochedez, head of the Malteser International emergency response department, said in a U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) report. "In the hospitals run by our partner organizations the number of injured arriving increases hour by hour. We must provide help rapidly.”

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, secretary of state for the Vatican, sent telegrams to the Vatican's ambassadors in Turkey and Syria expressing Pope Francis' profound sadness over the "huge loss of life” the quake brought to the region, the USCCB report added.