Turkey-Syria earthquake updates: Death toll climbs to over 41,000

The United States is “ramping up” assistance to Turkey and Syria, White House spokesperson John Kirby said Friday.

“In Turkey, a USAID Disaster Assistance and Response Team is already on the ground. And two of our most highly trained urban search and rescue teams are conducting operations in support of Turkish rescue efforts in Adana -- one of the hardest-hit areas inside the country,” Kirby said. “These teams have nearly 200 personnel combined between them, specialized equipment and canine support dogs, as well.”

Kirby said they’ve been able to “expand their operational reach with the support of U.S. military Blackhawk helicopters” to try and get around the extensive damage to roads and bridges.

“To date, they have been able to cover more than 630 sites across Adana [in Turkey],” Kirby said. “In Syria, our humanitarian partners continue to urgently scale up response efforts to reach people in need. That work will include, or has included, chartered flights that are transporting essential medical supplies and teams distributing hot meals and other food.”

The United Nations and its partners have successfully completed two humanitarian convoys into northwest Syria, Kirby said. One partner delivered 14 additional truckloads of supplies through the Bab-al-Hawa Crossing on the Turkey-Syria border, “totaling now 20 trucks of critical medicines, food and water to people in need over the last two days,” he said.

Kirby said U.S. sanctions imposed on Syria “will not prevent or inhibit prohibiting humanitarian assistance.”

-ABC News’ Justin Gomez

Monday's massive earthquake and powerful aftershocks have claimed at least 23,270 lives.

In Turkey, at least 20,213 people were killed and more than 80,000 others were injured, according to officials.

Meanwhile, at least 3,507 people were killed and 7,115 others were injured in both government- and rebel-controlled areas of northwestern Syria, according to combined figures from the Syrian Ministry of Health and the Syrian civil defense and medical group that operates in opposition-held areas, known as the White Helmets.

The Associated Press reported that the rising death toll in Turkey and Syria is now higher than the number of people who died as a result of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan’s northeastern Tohoku region, which caused the nuclear accident in Fukushima.

-ABC News Joe Simonetti

A newborn baby boy was rescued from the rubble in Turkey Friday, nearly 90 hours after the quake hit.

The baby, named Yagiz Ulas, was just 10 days old when he was rescued, along with his mother, Reuters reported. After the baby was removed from the rubble of the building in Hatay province, he was wrapped in a thermal blanket and put in an ambulance, according to Reuters.

As the desperate search for survivors continues, 121 Turkish citizens have been pulled from the rubble alive in the past 24 hours, Vice President Fuat Oktay said Thursday.

The search and rescue operations in Kilis and Şanlıurfa provinces have been completed, and they are almost complete in Adana, Osmaniye and Diyarbakır provinces, Oktay said.

-ABC News' Will Gretsky