Pakistan facing new wave of deaths

The warning came as the United Nations appealed for nearly double what it previously sought from donor nations gathering Wednesday in Geneva to raise money for victims of the temblor, which is believed to have killed nearly 80,000 people most in the high Himalayan mountains of northern Pakistan.

Jan Egeland, the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said before the meeting that millions of lives were at risk, an apparent reference to the 3.3 million people left homeless by the 7.6-magnitude quake.

"Catastrophe looms large," said Rashid Khalikov, the UN humanitarian coordinator in this destroyed city. "The danger is there that the loss of life would be very high if the required help does not reach them" before winter.

Pakistan's government raised the official death toll to 54,197 on Wednesday, with 78,000 injured. Central government figures have consistently lagged behind those by local officials, which put the death toll in Pakistan at about 78,000. A further 1,350 people died in Indian-held Kashmir.

Temperatures are already dipping below freezing in some areas of the mountainous north, and the weather is expected to worsen in coming weeks, cutting off remote valleys where some 800,000 people are believed to lack any shelter whatsoever.

Khalikov told The Associated Press the cold is already taking its toll on survivors, with winter still weeks off.

"What we have already in our hands is dramatic increases in respiratory diseases. There are a lot more cases of pneumonia, bronchitis and other kinds of diseases that happen when people are exposed to the cold," he said.

Aid workers have just five weeks to get six months' worth of food supplies into the most remote areas of Pakistan before they are cut off, according to the UN World Food Programme.

"We are racing against time. We need to win the race before snow falls," said Simon Missiri, head of the Asia and Pacific operation of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

"We need more resources to save 2 million to 3 million lives and we need much more resources in the next few days," Egeland said hours before the donor meeting. The UN is now asking for $549.6 million, up from the $312 million it initially called for.

Despite the fresh warnings, the United Nations has said it has received less than 30 percent of the $312 million it initially requested. Pakistan has said rebuilding the area will cost $5 billion.