A break in bad weather has allowed helicopter relief flights to resume across areas of Pakistan affected in last week's earthquake.
Eight international medical teams took off from Muzaffarabad to outlying villages, as fears grew for millions of survivors without health care and shelter in the isolated mountains of Kashmir, particularly for the thousands of injured who need medical treatment to ward off infections.
Officials now estimate the death toll from the earthquake to be more than 54,000. Pakistani officials have predicted a further jump in the death toll in Kashmir as heavy rains in the Himalayan mountains obstruct relief efforts.
The latest estimate would raise the death toll from the magnitude-7.6 quake in the mountains of northern Pakistan and India to at least 54,000 - a jump of more than 13,000 from the official count of known dead.
US diplomat Geoffrey Krassy estimated that about one-fifth of populated areas had yet to be reached.
A spokesman warned that the cold and wet could cause further deaths among the two million or so people believed to be homeless, although the rains receded early today, bringing hope that efforts could resume in force to bring aid to the stricken region.
About a fifth of the villages in the quake zone remained cut off eight days after the earthquake, and the bad weather over Kashmir halted aid flights by helicopters.
Two strong aftershocks shook the area early today, including one measuring 4.5-magnitude, but there was no immediate report of damage. There have been hundreds of aftershocks since the first earthquake, and experts say they could continue for months.
Government officials in Islamabad said early Sunday that 39,422 people were confirmed killed in all of Pakistan - at least 26,422 dead in the Pakistani portion of Kashmir and another 13,000 in North West Frontier Province.
But later yesterday a spokesman for the state government chief in the Pakistani portion of Kashmir said the death toll in that region alone is believed to be "not less than 40,000." This would mean the quake killed more than 53,000 in all of Pakistan.
With another 1,350 deaths reported in India's part of Kashmir, that brings the quake's death toll to more than 54,000.
A precise death toll will be difficult to determine, because many bodies are buried under collapsed buildings and landslides.
AP