Thousands of miles from their home country, students in the University at Albany Turkish Student Association are paying close attention to the aftermath of Sunday's deadly quake. Matt Hunter has more.

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ALBANY, N.Y. – "I remember a night club collapsed 45 minutes from my home and people died there,” Ersin Dincelli said. “There were scuba divers and they were collecting dead bodies from the sea and it was just happening in front of us and at that moment, you don't feel anything actually, it just goes so fast."

Dincelli can relate to the victims of Sunday's earthquake in Turkey. In 1999, he and his family were forced from their home when a 7.6 magnitude quake struck near Istanbul and killed thousands.

"I woke up and fell down from my bed and had to leave the home with my family and we had to stay in a corn field for three days, so it was really awful," Dincelli said.

More than a decade later, Dincelli is now working toward his MBA at UAlbany.

Dincelli and about 50 other students from the school's Turkish Student Association have been watching with a close eye, as the death toll in their country rises.

"This is the sad part of it because if something happens in our country, as you said, we are thousands of miles away from it and we cannot go and we cannot reach [them],” said Cuneyt Gozu, the Turkish Student Association president.

"Right now the earthquake zone is really far from my hometown, but still people are really depressed, really upset," Dincelli said.

Thankfully, none of the UAlbany students have friends or family impacted by Sunday's quake, however, all say they're doing whatever they can to help the victims who weren't so lucky.

"They need our support and we will try to do our best here on campus and also in Turkey, there is big support coming from the west, from the east, from the south, we are all united trying protect our people," Gozu said.

The Turkish students are now hoping the rest of the student body will generously assist them in helping the people of their home country at a special fundraiser at the Campus Center this Thursday night at 7 p.m.

For more information, visit the Turkish Student Association on Facebook .