UNITED NATIONS -- Despite fresh appeals and warnings of a second wave of deaths, the United Nations said it has received less than 30 per cent of the $312 million US it desperately needs to help earthquake victims in Pakistan's ravaged mountains. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has invited ministers to attend a high-level donor conference in Geneva on Wednesday to try to mobilize additional financial support for the massive relief effort that is trying to help 3 million people affected by the Oct. 8 quake. "If things don't turn on Wednesday, I don't know where we're going," said UN deputy emergency relief coordinator Margareta Wahlstrom on Monday. "It is quite worrisome because the Red Cross is reporting the same problems." With only a three-week window to deliver aid to mountainous regions before the first snowfall, UN officials and relief agencies are scrambling to provide shelter and food so hundreds of thousands of people can survive the winter. While nearly 100 helicopters are operating, heavy rain is expected in the next three or four days and the United Nations cannot yet say whether all remote villages have been reached, Wahlstrom said. Sixteen days after the mammoth quake wreaked havoc in Kashmir's Himalayan region, donors have only pledged or committed $90 million, just 29 per cent of the $312 million flash appeal. By comparison, the UN flash appeal after last December's tsunami was more than 80 per cent funded within 10 days of the disaster. Wahlstrom said every day UN officials keep asking themselves why the response has been so poor. "What is it that isn't quite right?," she asked. "I've never believed in donor fatigue. I think what happens is that countries reach a point where they've actually exhausted their aid budgets." What UN officials are hoping is that donor countries are making arrangements to increase their aid budgets to add to the Pakistan appeal on Wednesday, Walhstrom said. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland will be at the Geneva meeting along with senior Pakistani officials. So far, 250 participants have said they are coming, including 60 governments. "We hope for even more government representatives," Wahlstrom said. "The single purpose of that conference is to ensure that we get sufficient resources, money and supplies, air transport, to help us through the emergency relief operation." Pakistan's top relief official, Maj. Gen. Farooq Ahmed Khan, said Sunday the official quake toll is now more than 53,000 dead and 75,000 injured, though central figures have lagged behind regional ones. Figures from officials in the North West Frontier Province and Pakistan's part of Kashmir add up to about 78,000. India reported 1,360 deaths in its part of Kashmir. Wahlstrom said UN teams have been doing assessment missions in remote valleys that haven't previously been reached and have found 95 to 100 per cent destruction of houses, many people dead, and survivors homeless with no shelter.

Last week, Annan warned that a second "massive wave of death" will hit Pakistani areas most affected by the mammoth earthquake unless the international community immediately escalates the relief effort before winter arrives. Wahlstrom said she would do "everything that is in my power to prevent the second wave from starting" but finding shelter is key. "In that part of the world, it gets very cold by the end of November," Wahlstrom said. "And I think that's a really crucial threshold for us to keep our eyes on, and make sure we don't get there." Even with 62,000 tents already in Pakistan and 200,000 expected by the start of winter, less than half the homeless families will have shelter, the UN said. Another problem is that about 50 per cent of the mountainous terrain is unsuitable for tents so relief officials are looking at other possible solutions using local materials.- By Edith Leder.