ISLAMABAD, Oct 10: Veteran UN relief experts say there is little hope of those still trapped under the rubble of their earthquake-flattened houses in remote areas surviving until rescuers can reach them.

“Some areas have not yet even been reached or assessed,” Gerhard Putman-Cramer, head of the UN’s Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) Team, said in Islamabad.

Mr Putman-Cramer and six other UNDAC members arrived here on Sunday to spearhead the UN’s relief efforts. “The urgent need is now for helicopters,” said Mr Putman-Cramer.

He said trucks and heavy equipment needed in relief and rescue operations had been flown into Islamabad from countries such as Turkey and France.

But because roads have been blocked by landslides, the equipment could not be shifted to areas in need, he said.

“It’s not only rescue work that is being affected, we have to start relief efforts as well. There’s a huge need for field hospitals, water, sanitation and for food.”

Swiss national Alain Pasche, a member of Mr Putman-Cramer’s team who also helped coordinate relief efforts after the 2003 earthquake in Bam, Iran, that killed some 26,000 people, said time was running out.

If trapped in concrete and steel buildings like those constructed in big cities, people had a chance of surviving for three to four days if they were mercifully caught in a ‘pocket’, said Mr Pasche.

The houses in Kashmir, however, are similar to those in Bam — block buildings that are quickly reduced to rubble by a large quake.

“In these cases, if you’re outside you’re alive. If you’re inside you’re dead,” he said.

In a statement issued in Islamabad, the United Nations said that as an immediate measure, UN agencies in Pakistan had begun transporting small amounts of relief items such as blankets, tents, medicine kits, food, water purification tablets and water containers.

“Four-by-four vehicles are perhaps getting through, but we need the roads to be cleared so we can move in the heavy equipment needed to launch proper search and rescue operations,” said Mr Pasche.

The UN’s emergency relief coordinator, Jan Egeland, said Pakistan urgently needs more helicopters.—AFP