MUZAFFARABAD, Oct 23: The international community failed to grasp the scale of the South Asian earthquake and more than two weeks after the disaster, the response is still not enough, a UN relief official said on Sunday.

Rashid Khalikov, the UN humanitarian aid area coordinator in this quake-hit capital of Azad Kashmir, said international relief agencies were “still coming to grips” with the disaster, which killed more than 50,000 people and left more than three million homeless in difficult mountain territory.

“Two weeks after the earthquake that devastated this region countless thousands (of people) need to be reached in high-altitude terrain,” he told reporters.

“In the first few days after the earthquake the world clearly did not comprehend the magnitude and complexity of the disaster.

“Even now we are still coming to grips with the extent of the people’s needs as new information comes in from previously inaccessible areas.”

He said UN agencies, working alongside the Pakistani army and independent non-governmental groups, had distributed 60,000 tents — nowhere near enough to protect the millions of destitute from the increasingly cold nights.

Another 190,000 tents were in the UN pipeline but more would be needed if the world body is to prevent what Secretary General Kofi Annan called a possible “second wave” of deaths as winter bites in the Himalayan region.

“From a logistical point of view this is possibly the most challenging emergency relief operation that the international humanitarian community has ever faced,” Mr Khalikov said.

In Azad Kashmir alone, “some 800,000 people, or 150,000 families, are believed to be without shelter,” he said.

“The scale of this calamity is beyond the capacity of any one country. The support of the international community is vital and it is essential that donors contribute the necessary funds as soon as possible.”

He said only some 90 million dollars of international aid pledges had been received in response to the UN’s flash appeal for 312 million dollars for immediate relief operations.

The flash appeal for last December’s Asian tsunami disaster was more than 80 per cent funded within 10 days of the event.

Mr Khalikov said the UN only had seven helicopters to help distribute its aid throughout the region. This would rise to 12 in the coming days but even then the world body would not have enough aircraft to do the job, he said.

As for tents, the aid coordinator said the world was being scoured for more.

“All the tents available in the world are being eyed for this relief operation,” he said.—AFP