Agentur dpa from his base in Batagram, a small quake-affected town on the Karakorum Highway. Hollingworth said continuous rains have also affected two tent villages accommodating at least 7,000 people in Batagram and the situation could worsen if the rains and the cold spell continued. Temperatures in these areas dip down to -10 in December and January, and more rains could turn the relief operations into a nightmare for the government and private relief organizations. Under its "Winter Race" programme, the UN along with foreign relief organizations had been rushing in materials for temporary shelters but it is not enough to look after all the quake victims in the area. "I am still not sure that 100 per cent of people living above 5,000 feet have got those temporary shelters," the UN official said. The Kashmir International Relief Fund (KIRF) says about 100 children have already died in Muzaffarabad, the devastated capital of Pakistani Kashmir, and its Bagh district. "We had predicted this," said KIRF's Ishfaq Ahmed of the cold-related deaths in the absence of insulated tents. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) reckons that at least 1.9 million tents need to be winterized for those living below 5,000 feet. As many as three-quarters of the tents that were distributed in the aftermath of the quake are not suitable for such severe winter conditions, the IOM had warned in November. The UN has so far received less than half of the 550 million dollars it had appealed for, and requires about 45 million dollars for urgent relief goods like blankets and winter shelters. James Morris, the head of the World Food Programme (WFP), also complained of the slow and inadequate response to the immediate needs of the disaster-stricken people. "We had appealed for about 100 million dollars to provide air support for UN relief operations but got about one-third funded so far," Morris was quoted as saying in the Daily Times newspaper. The weather promises no relief; the wet spell would continue for next 36 hours in northern Pakistan and Kashmir followed by more cold. "Snowfall is expected to exceed the normal range both in terms of frequency of occurrence and amount, and with that the temperatures will also sink further," said Alamzeb Khan, a senior official of the Pakistan meteorological department. Relief workers fear the latest cold wave could bring down more snow. "The winter could be a bigger killer than the earthquake itself," Ishfaq Ahmed said.
