By Simon Cameron-Moore
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Sickness is increasing among Pakistani earthquake survivors, a U.N. official said on Thursday, after the government dramatically increased the death toll from the disaster.
The government said on Wednesday the toll had jumped to 73,276 dead from a figure of 57,600 given a day earlier. The sharp rise could be related to concerted efforts to clear debris since the Oct. 8 quake, a top relief official said.
Pakistani Kashmir and adjoining North West Frontier Province bore the brunt of the 7.6 magnitude quake, which also seriously injured more than 69,000.
It was the strongest to hit South Asia in 100 years and left more than three million people in need of emergency shelter with a bitter Himalayan winter approaching.
The United Nations, heading an international relief effort, says donors have failed to provide sufficient funds for emergency aid work. It says that as many people as died in the quake could perish in the winter unless help reaches them fast.
"The situation is quite desperate," the chief U.N. disaster coordinator, Rashid Khalikov, told Reuters in Muzaffarabad, the devastated capital of Pakistani Kashmir.
"We have noticed a sharp increase in acute respiratory infection that can lead to pneumonia," he said.
He said seven deaths from water-borne diarrhoea had been reported from a town in North West Frontier Province, although there had been no reports of deaths from exposure.
The U.N. children's fund says measles is also spreading in cramped tent settlements and it is launching a vaccination drive in the coming days.
"What worries us most is the dramatic increase in vulnerability of the population, and there are not so many coping mechanisms that they have to deal with this," Khalikov said.
"DIFFICULT PLAN"
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf this week urged survivors living in communities high in the mountains to move to lower ground for the winter, saying they would not survive in emergency tent shelters.
However, aid workers say many are reluctant to leave behind crops, livestock and the remains of ancestral homes to move into lowland tent villages.
Khalikov said the top priority was people living at 5,000 feet (1,500 metres), and there were at least 150,000 of them in two areas of Northwest Frontier Province alone, he said.
It was unclear how many people in all might be heading to lower, warmer areas as the harsh winter set in, he said.
"It is very difficult to plan. It has never happened before. We can only guess whether they will come down or not and when they will come down," Khalikov said.
The United Nations has complained that it has received only about 20 percent of the funds it needs for emergency relief.
Pakistan will host an international donors' conference to be attended by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Nov. 19 to raise funds for reconstruction estimated at $5 billion.
The U.N.'s World Food Programme (WFP), which says 2.3 million people need emergency food, said that unless the money is forthcoming it cannot pay for the helicopters needed to position winter food stocks for survivors over the next four weeks.
"It's a disaster," said the WFP's chief coordinator in Muzaffarabad, Keith Ursel.
"At first there will be a reduction in the number of flights. When the fuel tank is empty your car stops, so we're not stupid, we'll try to keep some running all the time," he said.