In its "flash appeal" for aid for victims of the huge weekend earthquake in Pakistani and Indian-administered Kashmir, the United Nations has called for $272 million worth of life-saving and recovery supplies to be delivered over the next six months.
Emergency shelter, nutrition, medicines and transport goods are needed as millions of survivors face into wintry conditions in some of the most remote parts of both countries. The 40,000 or so people who have died and the many more who have been injured are struggling in the most desperate conditions, most of them with little prospect of immediate relief and with a growing threat of disease. Helicopters are in particularly short supply compared to the scale of the damage and the inaccessibility of the terrain.
It is a horrifying event which leaves a sense of anger and helplessness among its victims - and among a watching world anxious to help them effectively and rapidly. It raises once again all the questions thrown up by these major disasters, of which we have seen so many this year, from the Asian tsunami to the two US hurricanes. While there is a great popular and governmental willingness to respond, each such effort starts from scratch, involving recurring problems of overlapping and duplicated national and international emergency aid and reconstruction. Poor physical and human infrastructures are highlighted by this natural catastrophe, including roads and homes unable to withstand earthquake tremors.
It is extraordinary that the UN should have to mount such an appeal for recovery aid, however confident it is that it will be met. Even more urgent is the case for immediate help in coping with such disasters. It is high time serious discussions were held on setting up an international standby force capable of coming rapidly to the aid of people and governments affected by natural disasters. This should be organised through the UN, which alone has the political reach and legitimacy to establish it.
All this is easier to advocate than to deliver. Any standby system takes time to mobilise within the short few hours and days needed to save lives - and well-functioning national governments are usually best placed to provide this response. But they should be able to call on a standing international force and resources in such circumstances. And there are also governments incapable of helping such victims - or who refuse to do so because they are responsible for man-made disasters.
Neither Pakistan nor India are in this category. There have been welcome signs of co-operation between them in this tragedy - and some indications that it could spur efforts to improve relations in the longer term over the long-standing crisis in Kashmir. The immediate task is to give all possible help for relief and reconstruction after one of the most severe earthquakes in this volatile region in the past 100 years. But longer-term solidarity requires greater operational preparedness by the UN.