ISLAMABAD, Oct 30: The United States assured Pakistan on Sunday that it had no intentions of reducing support to the ongoing relief operations in the quake-hit areas and urged the donor community to be more forthcoming in this regard.

“The US has no plans to diminish its support of its ally Pakistan in its hour of need and hopes the international community can step up with great increased commitments to support the relief efforts,” said a statement issued by the US embassy here on Sunday.

Advocating greater and speedy international support for Pakistan in this hour of tragedy and trial, it added: “We agree with the UN that the international community needs to greatly step up its level of support to Pakistan in order to provide humanitarian relief during what will be a protracted relief operation lasting months. We would urge all donors to do the same.”

The US embassy statement titled “Points of Clarification-– Media Reporting that Helicopters will Stop Flying Soon” was prompted by recent reports suggesting that relief helicopters would soon stop flying if donations to the UN effort failed to increase.

Taking note of these reports, the US embassy underscored that it had plans to further increase the number of US helicopters to respond to the requests and needs of the Pakistani government and military.

The statement said relief operations were continuing on an accelerated basis, with increasing quantities of relief supplies being airlifted on a daily basis.

“Today, 21 US military helicopters are involved in relief missions, flying dozens of sorties each day to relief centres and villages throughout the quake-stricken area with more expected within coming days,” it added.

Recapping the US government’s response to the crisis, the embassy said the day after the earthquake, four US-provided helicopters already in Pakistan had been mobilized

to the affected areas. Two

days after the earthquake, eight US military helicopters had arrived in Pakistan and immediately begun flying food, medicine, water and other relief

supplies to the areas most severely damaged by the earthquake.

In the three weeks since then, US helicopters had flown nearly 800 sorties to the quake-stricken areas, and had delivered more than 2.8 million pounds of relief supplies. Additionally, they had evacuated nearly 3,000 people injured by the earthquake, it said.

In addition, the US government had contributed $3.5 million to the UN-WFP airlift through the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service, the embassy pointed out, adding that of $5 million the US had contributed to ICRC, up to $2 million was also being used to support airlift capacity in Pakistan.—Q.A.