UN despairs 'huge disaster'

Pakistan is facing a "second massive wave of death" unless the relief effort for earthquake survivors is stepped up drastically, the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, said.

The UN's senior relief co-ordinator has called for an operation on the scale of the 1940s Berlin airlift to get aid into affected areas and to evacuate tens of thousands of victims before winter sets in.

In a stark summary of the scale of the emergency, Annan said: "An estimated three million men, women and children are homeless. Many of them have no tents to protect them against the merciless Himalayan winter. That means a second, massive wave of death will happen if we do not step up our efforts.

"It is a race against time to save the lives of these people. This is a huge, huge disaster - perhaps the biggest ever that we have seen - and at the time of the cold season."

Annan was sending letters to "a whole set of countries" asking for more money.

In Geneva, the UN's emergency relief co-ordinator, Jan Egeland, called for an extensive airlift to get aid in and to evacuate the injured and homeless.

"The world is not doing enough," he said. "We have never had this kind of logistical nightmare, ever. We thought the tsunami was the worst we could get. This is worse."

The December 26 tsunami killed more than 200,000 people.

But the Pakistan earthquake has left more people homeless - and, unlike tsunami survivors who were in accessible coastal areas in a warm climate, they are stranded in remote mountain areas and facing a winter in which more than 1.8m of snowfall would be commonplace.

Helicopters are flying round the clock in an attempt to reach survivors of the earthquake, which has already killed at least 79,000 people in Pakistan, according to local officials.

But the quake struck in some of the world's most remote territory and the relief effort has not been able to reach survivors in some mountain valleys. There are not enough helicopters available in Pakistan, and the aid effort has resorted to pack horses.

Egeland called for more countries to send helicopters, and said there was a need for a "second Berlin air bridge", referring to the airlift in 1948-49 to keep Soviet-blockaded West Berlin supplied.

Britain said yesterday it was sending three Chinook helicopters to help with the effort, almost two weeks after the earthquake struck.

The United States already has helicopters in operation, but the West has been slow to react to Pakistan's pleas, and has been shown up by Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries in the world, which sent four military helicopters to its neighbour three days after the quake.

"Tens of thousands of people's lives are at stake and they could die if we don't get to them in time," said Egeland.

Nato has begun an airlift to get 900 tonnes of aid into Pakistan, including tens of thousands of tents. But the UN has warned there may not be enough winterised tents in the world to provide shelters.

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