Aid agencies and governments stepped up a scramble to send help to earthquake-hit parts of Turkey and Syria on Tuesday, as rescuers continued to pull survivors out of the rubble more than 200 hours after devastation swept the region.
Politics weighed on efforts to rush in aid, as many survivors still waiting for tents slept outside in freezing weather. Efforts to help survivors and count the dead and injured in Syria were marred by the continued divisions from 12 years of civil war.
The toll is nearly certain to rise as search teams turn up more bodies following the magnitude 7.8 and 7.5 quakes that struck nine hours apart on Feb. 6 in southeastern Turkey and northern Syria - and the window for finding survivors was closing. Rescuers then asked for quiet, and one shouted “Can anyone hear me?” in the frenzied hunt for more survivors.
Until now, the U.N. has only been allowed to deliver aid to the Idlib area through a single crossing at Bab Al-Hawa, and the world body has been under intense pressure to get more aid and heavy equipment into northwest Syria. Several other Arab countries have sent planes loaded with aid to government-held Syria, including Jordan and Egypt, the United Arab Emirates. Algeria, Iraq, Oman, Tunisia, Sudan and Libya have also delivered aid to Damascus.
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