ISLAMABAD, Oct 20: The United Nations is seeking $400 million for the initial recovery of the October 8 quake victims and an adequate number of helicopters from the international community to meet what is being termed an “unprecedented logistics challenge” in Azad Kashmir and NWFP.

Sources in the local UN office told Dawn here on Thursday that UN Secretary General Kofi Anan will formally ask the international donor agencies and Pakistan’s bilateral creditors next week to urgently provide $400 million, instead of $312 million which was earlier sought, to accelerate the relief activities in the quake-hit areas.

The sources also said the UN has shifted the emergency meeting of international donors set for Oct 24 in Geneva to Oct 26 reportedly to help them and the Pakistan government to adequately assess the damage.

The country needed an immediate and exceptional escalation of the global relief effort, they added.

The sources said so far pledges worth $81 million had been made but the UN needed $319 million more to effectively pursue the initial recovery task in the quake-affected regions.

The UN wants the donors to make firm commitments which have so far been lacking compared to the tsunami flash appeal when 80 per cent funds were arranged within 10 days after the disaster.

The sources said the UN secretary general regretted that Pakistan, which needed hundreds of helicopters, was still looking towards its friends for them.

When the tsunami struck, the sources said, about 1,000 helicopters were commissioned while in Pakistan there were 80-90 helicopters which were carrying out relief activities in some 30,000 sq km of area where all essential infrastructure had been destroyed.

A big number of helicopters were required to be mobilized in inaccessible areas to avoid more deaths.

“We have again approached governments and organizations, like NATO, to give us the logistical support like helicopters, trucks and heavy lifting equipment.

Without that logistical support and tactical air capacity, it is going to be very difficult to reach some people in remote areas,” a source said.

He added that in terms of logistics, the difficult terrain made this one of the most challenging relief operations ever undertaken, especially when winter was approaching fast and temperatures were dropping.

Up to 450,000 more winterized tents and temporary shelters, an estimated two million blankets and sleeping bags, tarpaulins, ground sheets and stoves, water and sanitation equipment and food supplies were needed, the sources said.

About rehabilitation and reconstruction work, the sources said that the UN authorities believed that it, perhaps, required $8-10 billion which needed to be offered by the donors mostly in the form of grants and soft loans.

The sources said that the Pakistan government and the media should repeatedly ask the international community to offer “every thing as grant on no-return basis” as was done with the tsunami-hit countries so that some strong infrastructure could be built in the quake-affected areas in Pakistan. They said it was impossible to properly gauge the magnitude of the catastrophe.

They said huge international funding was required to build thousands of hospitals, schools, government buildings, water systems, major roads and other communication network.