Sharjah24 - Reuters: On Monday, Turkey ramped up efforts to remove debris from fallen structures as rescue operations came to an end two weeks after significant earthquakes in southern Turkey and northwest Syria claimed more than 46,000 lives.
Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said that nearly 13,000 excavators, cranes, trucks and other industrial vehicles had been sent to the quake zone.
The death toll in Turkey had risen to 41,020, the AFAD said, and it was expected to climb, with some 385,000 apartments in the country known to have been destroyed or seriously damaged and many people still missing.
Among the survivors of the Feb. 6 earthquakes in Turkey and Syria are about 356,000 pregnant women who urgently need access to reproductive health services, the U.N. sexual and reproductive health agency (UNFPA) said at the weekend.
The women include 226,000 in Turkey and 130,000 in Syria, about 38,800 of whom will deliver in the next month.