Time running out for Pakistan quake survivors, UN warns

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan, Tuesday (AFP) More help arrived in quake-hit Pakistan on Monday as the United Nations warned that time is running out for survivors of the worst catastrophe in the country's history.

EU humanitarian aid commissioner Louis Michel said a "second humanitarian disaster looms" for millions of destitute survivors and more than 70,000 injured unless help arrives before winter.

"We are facing an enormous humanitarian catastrophe," he said after the European Commission proposed an aid package worth 80 million euros (95 million dollars), 13.6 million euros more than it has already released.

"With winter just around the corner, a second humanitarian disaster looms for the four million people without a roof over their heads and the 70,000 injured people needing medical attention."

Three heavy-lift helicopters from Britain and five tonnes of medicine from Afghanistan reached the capital Islamabad but experts said much more was needed before winter snows hit the mountainous disaster zone in three weeks.

The UN's humanitarian office (OCHA) said relief efforts were likely to be disrupted by bad weather in the next few days, grounding helicopters which are the only life-line to remote villages in the rugged Kashmiri mountains.

"There is a three-week window of opportunity to deliver assistance to mountainous areas before the first snowfall," OCHA said in a report.

"According to reports from the authorities, severe weather, with heavy rain, is forecast to hit the area in the next three to four days."

UNICEF relief spokesman Michael Bociurkiw said children were likely to suffer most if help did not arrive before winter.

"It's going to be very difficult for them to survive," he told AFP here in the devastated capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Officials say between 10 and 20 percent of affected areas have not received any aid despite up to 100 relief flights daily since the 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck on October 8, killing more than 53,000 people.

"The people in my village have been without any food or medical care since the earthquake struck, so we decided to walk and find some help," said Ghulam Hussain, who walked 45 kilometres (27 miles) to Gandool, northeast of Balakot.

Pakistani troops and aid workers reached Gandool, one of many villages which had been cut off by landslides and broken roads, for the first time on Monday.

In Muzaffarabad, the Pakistani army began to clear the destroyed Medina market where bodies remained trapped more than two weeks after the quake.

"There are still people buried there... We will get to them today," said Major Farooq Nasir, an army spokesman.

Relief efforts have also been complicated by the rivalry between Pakistan and India, which have fought two wars over Kashmir.

Tensions flared again after a gunbattle erupted between Indian troops and three suspected Pakistan-based insurgents who were trying to cross the disputed border on Sunday, in a district earmarked for an aid supply post.

"It turned into a gunbattle that left three militants dead," Indian army spokesman Vijay Batra told AFP, adding that the incident took place in the northern Kupwara district on the Indian side of the disputed border.

India has proposed setting up three relief points along the frontier or Line of Control (LoC), one of them in Kupwara, for survivors from the Pakistani side but so far there has been no official response from Islamabad.

Pakistan, for its part, has proposed five locations on the LoC where Kashmiris can cross in either direction to assist relatives hit by the quake.

Talks between Indian and Pakistani officials on this idea are due to take place in Islamabad on Friday, Pakistan's foreign ministry said.

"It is our hope that we will be able to implement this proposal this month," foreign ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said.

The aid from Afghanistan came with visiting President Hamid Karzai, who met Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to "express the Afghan people's deep sense of sorrow and grief", a Pakistani official said.

Pakistani officials said there were no reports of further casualties after another strong aftershock measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale jolted Pakistan late Sunday.

The tremor, one of hundreds which have shaken the region since the October 8 quake, had its epicenter near Mansehra where thousands of destitute survivors have taken refuge in tents.