By John Lancaster and Daniela Deane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 13, 2005; 3:03 PM

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 13 -- The United Nations' top aid official said Thursday that relief efforts for South Asia's devastating earthquake were insufficient to meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of hungry, homeless survivors, many of whom are stranded in isolated mountain villages with the onset of the harsh Kashmiri winter only weeks away.

"I fear we are losing the race against the clock in the small villages," U.N. Undersecretary General and Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland told reporters after flying by helicopter to Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, which was destroyed by Saturday's quake.

"I've never seen such devastation before," he said. "We are in the sixth day of operation, and every day the scale of devastation is getting wider."

Egeland made his comments hours after an aftershock jolted parts of Pakistan, panicking survivors of last weekend's quake. It also came as snow began falling on parts of Kashmir, signaling the onset of the region's brutal winter.

Between 25,000 and 35,000 people are now believed to have died in the earthquake, the strongest to hit South Asia in a century, and the United Nations estimates that 4 million people have been affected by the disaster, including 2 million who lost their homes. Shelter is the most immediate need, and there are growing fears of hunger and disease.

The United Nations has appealed for $272 million for emergency aid, and so far about 30 countries, including the United States, have pledged assistance of one form or another.

U.S. helicopters borrowed from military operations in neighboring Afghanistan have already begun shuttling supplies and evacuating injured. The military loaded cargo planes with food, tarpaulins and other emergency aid to drop by parachute over areas of Pakistan, according to the Associated Press. The first plane was expected to leave Friday morning loaded with 10 tons of aid, the news agency reported.

Trucks with aid from dozens of countries jammed the roads up to the crumbling towns of Kashmir, but access to some areas remained blocked because of landslides, news agencies reported. A spokesman for ActionAid International in Pakistan told the Associated Press that some of its workers had to get out of their truck and walk because of bad roads and traffic jams.

Egeland said he thought the international response thus far was "not bad," adding, "tens of thousands of tents, hundreds of thousands of tons of emergency food, a million blankets and other relief goods are in the pipeline."

At the same time, he said, "We have seen a much graver picture and I believe we need to triple the number of helicopters in the operation. My appeal to the world is to come up with more aid, more relief and more resources."

Deane reported from Washington.