Measures against those involved in looting and other crimes in the affected areas earthquakes areas that her government is going to take over Turkeydeclared Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In his statements during a meeting in the affected areas, the Turkish President said that the death toll in his country exceeded 21,000, while he stressed that a state of emergency had been declared.

He also stated that hundreds of thousands of buildings in southern Turkey are uninhabitable and that the authorities will soon begin the reconstruction process. “We have planned to restore hundreds of thousands of buildings,” he said, adding: “We will start taking concrete steps in a few weeks.”

The Turkish president’s statements about the looting were preceded by an Austrian decision to suspend rescue operations due to the deteriorating “security situation,” a spokesman for the unit said. “There have been clashes between the factions,” he told the French news agency AFP, without elaborating.

Two women were rescued alive 122 hours after the earthquake

Authorities said rescuers in Turkey pulled two women alive from the rubble of damaged buildings where they had been trapped for 122 hours after Monday’s deadly earthquake.

At last count, about 24,500 people died in southern Turkey and northwestern Syria.

One of the survivors, 70-year-old Menexe Tabak, was found in a damaged building in Kahramanmaras province and taken to hospital, Anadolu news agency reported. The agency added that in Diyarbakir, 55-year-old Mashalah Cicek was pulled out from under the rubble of a building with injuries.

She turned out to be a 40-year-old woman who was released yesterday.

Meanwhile, a woman died a day after she was pulled from the rubble of a collapsed house in southern Turkey, where she had been trapped for 104 hours, rescuers said.

On Friday, German rescuers pulled Zeynep Kahraman, 40, from the rubble of an apartment building in the southern Turkish town of Kirihan. “We have just been informed by brother and sister Zeynep that she unfortunately passed away in the hospital,” said Steven Bayer, head of the German International Search and Rescue Team.

The team doctor said that some rescuers fight back tears and comfort each other, so the risk is very high in the first 48 hours after such a difficult rescue.

^{According to REUTERS}