Pakistan needs $5.2b for quake aid: Donors

The October 8 quake killed more than 73,000 people in Pakistan, most of them in Pakistani Kashmir. Hundreds of thousands of people are still homeless and, with many mountain roads blocked by landslides, aid has yet to reach many in remote areas.

Pakistan is organizing a donors' conference on November 19, which UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is due to attend.

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But for now, the United Nations says it has received funds and solid commitments worth only 15 percent of the total $550 million it is seeking for emergency relief operations.

Salman Shah, financial adviser to Pakistan's prime minister, said the World Bank and the Asian Development bank estimated that the country needs $3.5 billion for reconstruction of infrastructure.

"We also need more than $90 million to revive livelihoods lost in the quake," Shah told a news conference in Islamabad. "These costs are in addition to the $1.6 billion the UN has estimated will need to be spent on relief efforts."

So far $2.4 billion has been pledged, most of it bilaterally, from around the world, but Shah said not all of these pledges have been realized into cash.

"Lots of these pledges are for goods and services and logistics purposes," he said. "The relief operation is also financed by part of these pledges and commitments."

The ADB and World Bank assessment report on damages and needs said the loss of public and private assets was estimated at $2.3 billion. Private housing, with damages calculated at over $1 billion, suffered the most extensive damage.

Damage and losses to the transport, education, agriculture and livestock sectors also amounted to close to $1 billion.