PAKISTAN: UN secretary general Kofi Annan yesterday warned of a "gigantic task" ahead for quake recovery efforts in northern Pakistan, while aid groups said emergency help was urgently needed even as donor nations gather to discuss long-term reconstruction.
While visiting families sheltering in tents inside the quake zone, Mr Annan said that he would renew funding appeals at today's donor conference for what he called "one of the largest humanitarian tragedies we've had to deal with".
"It is really a gigantic task that we have ahead of us," Mr Annan said, adding that difficulties posed by winter's arrival and the logistics of reaching mountain villages made the disaster comparable to last December's South Asian tsunami that killed 180,000 people.
Accompanied by Pakistani president Gen Pervez Musharraf, Mr Annan visited families and observed vaccination work at the Thuri Park tent camp that houses 2,000 people in quake-hit Muzaffarabad.