Aid agencies and governments stepped up a scramble to send help to earthquake-hit parts of Türkiye and Syria on Tuesday, as rescuers continued to pull survivors out of the rubble more than 205 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.

On Tuesday, the United Nations announced a deal with Damascus to deliver UN aid through two more border crossings from Türkiye to rebel-held areas of northwest Syria, which was likely to help in the short term.

The death toll eclipsed 35,500 - nearly 32,000 of those in Türkiye. In Syria, the toll in the northwestern rebel-held region has reached 2,166, according to the rescue group known as the White Helmets. Over 1,400 people have died in government-held areas, according to the Syrian Health Ministry.

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 February 6 in southeastern Türkiye and northern Syria and the window for finding survivors is closing.

In Adiyaman province, rescuers reached 18-year-old Muhammed Cafer Cetin, and medics gave him an IV with fluids before attempting a dangerous extraction from a building that crumbled further as rescuers were working, Turkish TV showed.

Two others were rescued from a destroyed building in central Kahramanmaras, near the epicenter.

The United Nations said on Monday that President Bashar Assad of Syria had agreed to open two new crossing points from Türkiye to his country's rebel-held northwest to allow in aid and equipment for millions of victims. 

Fury boils over U.S. sanctions on war-torn, now quake-hit Syria, and it was urged to lift all illegal unilateral sanctions on Syria immediately and stop creating humanitarian disasters.

According to media reports, the United States recently announced that it would provide six months of sanctions relief for Syria, limited to allowing certain transactions for recovery efforts following the earthquakes.

After the quakes, the unilateral sanctions posed by the U.S. side directly hindered the rescue efforts in the first 72 hours in Syria, which made the disaster even worse.

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A second batch of relief aid from the Red Cross Society of China (RCSC) arrived in Syria by plane on Monday to provide emergency supplies for people affected by the quakes in the country. 

On Thursday, the RCSC sent the first batch of emergency medical supplies to Syria.

The first Saudi aid plane, carrying 35 tons of food, landed in government-held Aleppo on Tuesday, according to Syrian state media.

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 who have all delivered aid to Damascus.

The quake affected 10 provinces in Türkiye that are home to some 13.5 million people, as well as a large area in northwest Syria that is home to millions.

Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said late Monday that rescue work continued in Hatay province, along with Kahramanmaras, the epicenter, and Adiyaman. Rescue work appears to have ended in the remaining seven provinces.

The needs were immense, and incoming aid was still short of fulfilling them. Much of the water system in the quake-hit region was not working, raising the risks of contamination. Türkiye's health minister said samples taken from dozens of points of the water system showed the water was unsuitable to drink.

More than 41,500 buildings were either destroyed or so damaged that they need to be demolished, according to Türkiye's Ministry of Environment and Urbanization.

(With input from agencies)