August 27, 2021: -On Wednesday, the U.S. military, alongside coalition partners, ramped up emergency evacuate flights as foreign forces head into the final days of a massive humanitarian airlift. In the past 24 hours, Western forces already evacuated 19,000 people out of Kabul on 90 military cargo aircraft flights, a cadence of one departure flight every 39 minutes, according to the Pentagon.

Since the mass evacuations began on August 14, approximately 82,300 people have been airlifted out of Afghanistan. About 87,900 people have been evacuated since July-end, which includes nearly 4,400 U.S. citizens and their families.

The Pentagon said Wednesday that 10,000 people are currently at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul awaiting a flight. There are still several thousand Americans believed to be a pending evacuation, according to the State Department.

The Biden administration has not provided the total number of Americans and Afghan nationals that it aims to evacuate before the August 31 deadline set by President Joe Biden.

NATO allies and members of the president’s party have pushed for an extension of the withdrawal deadline, expressing doubt that the coalition can evacuate all the Afghans who are eligible to leave in such a short time frame.

However, Biden on Tuesday reiterated to leaders of the G-7, NATO, United Nations, and European Union that the United States would withdraw its military from Afghanistan by the end of the month.

“We are currently on pace to finish by August 31,” Biden said from the West Wing of the White House, in his third address on Afghanistan since the country fell to the Taliban.

“In addition, I’ve asked the Pentagon and the State Department for contingency plans to adjust the timetable should that become necessary,” Biden said.

At the Pentagon, spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. military was still working on completing the evacuation mission by this month-end and would not elaborate on potential alternate plans.

When asked about reports of two lawmakers flying to Kabul to observe evacuation efforts, Kirby said the U.S. military was “not aware of this visit.”

“We are not encouraging VIP visits to an agitated, dangerous, and dynamic situation at that airport and inside Kabul,” Kirby said, adding that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “would have appreciated the opportunity to have had a conversation before the visit; that took place.”

On Tuesday, Reps. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., and Peter Meijer, R-Mich., said in a statement they went to Kabul to gather first-hand accounts to inform their role as lawmakers. Moulton and Meijer are Iraq War veterans.