Pakistan's friends, foes urge more quake aid

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan, Monday (Reuters) Efforts to reach stranded villagers in Pakistan's northern mountains gathered pace on Monday after the country's friends and foes both urged help for up to 3 million survivors of the Oct. 8 earthquake.

Aid officials have been complaining ever more loudly that the world was not doing enough, while a quake on Sunday evening measured at magnitude 6 by the U.S. Geological Survey was a potent reminder of the force nature can still unleash.

Time and money are crucial if countless survivors, many stranded in remote valleys and mountain villages 16 days after the quake, are to be helped before a harsh Himalayan winter sets in by late November, aid officials say.

"The support of the international community is vital and it is essential that donor countries contribute necessary funds as soon as possible," said Rashid Khalikov, U.N. Humanitarian coordinator in the devastated capital of Pakistani Kashmir, Muzaffarabad.

"Whether we are able to do it in six weeks or not, we will know only six weeks after today, but we will do our best," he said as the confirmed death toll in northern Pakistan passed 53,000, with more than 75,000 seriously injured.

Those figures are expected to rise substantially, with untold numbers lying buried in the rubble of an estimated 2,000 villages yet to be reached and aid officials fearing a second wave of deaths among the untended injured.

U.S. General John Abizaid visited the region on Sunday and said the United States would be sending more helicopters for the aid effort, while al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahri, urged Muslims to help even though Pakistan's government was a U.S. "agent".

"The international community needs to continue to help and you can certainly count on the United States to continue to help as well," Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command, said after flying over the disaster area.

Helicopters needed to reach otherwise inaccessible mountain villages cut off by landslides were arriving - three British Chinook heavy transporters the latest - and more were due.

"Today we provided two more heavy-lift helicopters that can come over from Afghanistan ... We've got about 13 more that are over there that are coming forward. We will eventually get about 25 more over here. We are bringing in as much as we can," Abizaid told reporters.

"The NATO forces are coming," he said of the decision by the U.S.-dominated military alliance to send an engineering battalion to help clear roads swept away or blocked by landslides triggered by the quake.