In the Pakistan-controlled part of disputed Kashmir, international organizations said more aid is needed to avert a second wave of deaths. Regional authorities in Pakistan had almost doubled the estimated death toll to 79 000 on 20 October, making it one of the most lethal quakes in modern times.

Field workers from Church World Services-Action by Churches Together (CWS-ACT) sent reports to the their headquarters in New York and Geneva that 260 000 tents and two million blankets were urgently required. "Quake-hit areas face a second wave of deaths with thousands of injured lying untreated in the remnants of remote mountain villages as winter closes in fast. Temperatures have already dipped down to 7 Celsius in Balakot and snow has fallen on nearby mountains," said ACT in a communique from Geneva on 20 October.

"With bad weather conditions hampering relief activities and the inaccessibility of roads to many areas relief workers are left with only one option - to distribute relief on foot," said the report sent in by field workers who stressed there was still a shortage of helicopters.

Franklin Joseph, emergency relief director of World Vision India, told Ecumenical News International on 20 October: "We are now looking after 3000 [quake-hit] families in 14 villages."

A 10-member World Vision team from New Delhi supported by more than 20 local volunteers were assisting the effort to mitigate the suffering of the quake victims through sending truck loads of woollen blankets and other emergency material to Kupuwara, 220 kilometres northwest of Srinagar, the capital of Indian Kashmir.

Joseph noted that in Tangdar in Kupuwara district 90 per cent of the houses had been flattened by the 8 October quake but most aid workers have been focusing on the Uri region that is much closer to Srinagar.

The Rev. Vino Kaul, coordinator of the Church of North India's quake relief effort, told ENI from his base in Srinagar that the government allotted the Paran Pillan village to his church's care. "We have been visiting this village for several days with our workers staying with the people," said Kaul.

The social service director of the Roman Catholic diocese of Jammu and Srinagar, the Rev. Arul Alphonse, said the state government had entrusted 12 villages to Catholic charities including Caritas India and Catholic Relief Services. As well as the adopted villages, Alphonse said 60 relief workers were visiting inaccessible villages which have received "little or no relief" so far.

While the official death-toll in Indian Kashmir was only 1350, Mani Jacob, general secretary of the National Forum of Christian Colleges, said after touring quake-hit villages that he did not find a single school building standing. "Many lives were spared due to the school holiday," he noted.

"The children on the Pakistani side were unlucky," Jacob pointed out. According to UNICEF, up to 15 000 Pakistani children were killed inside their classrooms when the quake hit minutes after their Saturday classes began.

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