Tuesday, November 1 2005 14:27 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

United Nations: The United Nations has warned it might be forced to ground its relief helicopters, the sole lifeline for hundreds of thousands of quake survivors, within the next two weeks due to lack of funds to fly them.

"It is extremely worrying that the international community, which was so generous after the Indian Ocean tsunami, has so far failed to come up with an adequate response to this crisis," World Food Programme (WFP) Regional Director for the Middle East, Central Asia and Eastern Europe, Amir Abdulla, said.

WFP has so far received less than 10 per cent of the 100 million dollars needed to deploy 30 transport helicopters to move food aid and other humanitarian supplies to villages and communities scattered in the rugged mountains of northeast Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir area devastated by the October 8 quake.

With an extremely harsh winter approaching, snow will soon cut off more areas ravaged by the disaster, which has already killed more than 50,000 people, injured some 74,000 others and left over 3 million more homeless.

Helicopters are becoming more and more essential as landslides continue to block many access roads.

"It is tragic that when we have the expertise and technical capacity to ensure that most of the survivors get their basic food needs through winter, we cannot reach them because of a lack of funding," Abdulla said.