UN warns it could run out of money for quake relief

THE UN warned last night it will run out of money and be forced to ground helicopters delivering earthquake relief supplies to northern Pakistan unless donors come through with the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to see 2.3 million hungry people through the winter.

UN humanitarian co-ordinator in Pakistan, Jan Vandemoortele, also urged India and Pakistan to open the disputed Kashmir border, saying this would help the relief effort if not solve logistical challenges posed by the Himalayan terrain.

Indian officials were set to arrive in Pakistan for talks on letting Kashmiris cross the so-called Line of Control a particularly sensitive issue for New Delhi because of a 16-year Islamic insurgency in India's part of Kashmir by militants seeking the territory's independence or merger with Pakistan.

The October 8 quake is believed to have killed nearly 80,000 people, most of them in north-western Pakistan and Pakistan's portion of divided Kashmir.

Michael Jones, of the UN World Food Programme, said: "The situation is quite grim. With the money we have already, and much of it obtained from our own internal emergency reserves, we can keep the helicopters running for one week."

With landslides still blocking many roads, helicopters are a lifeline for isolated communities, delivering supplies and ferrying badly injured people to hospitals.

Halting flights would be calamitous for hundreds of communities that have received little aid, weeks before winter hits.

Donor nations meeting in Geneva this week pledged $580 million for quake victims, but the UN said it had received only about 20% of the funds it needs a far weaker response than to other recent disasters, such as last year's Indian Ocean tsunami.

Mr Jones, the WFP earthquake emergency relief coordinator, said an estimated 2.3 million people needed food. With its current funds, the agency could help only 500,000 people for two months, he said.

Thousands of survivors are still turning up each day at makeshift clinics, suffering increasingly from disease such as scabies, diarrhoea and pneumonia.

Sacha Bootsma of the World Health Organisation said more than 3,400 people sought treatment on Thursday around the devastated northern town of Balakot 400 with suspected cases of acute respiratory infection.

Yesterday, Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf approved $33.3 million (€27.6m) for reconstruction of homes, and said tents should be provided to the estimated 800,000 people without shelter within two weeks.

The government has banned exports of tents and told manufacturers to produce 300,000 units in six weeks an amount they usually make in a year.