After collecting less than one third of its 312 million dollar (259 million euro) appeal for aid, the UN and Red Cross fear thousands of injured and homeless people will be stranded without care in the mountains of Pakistani Kashmir over winter.

Bad weather has been forecast in the region this week, while snowfall is expected to ground most of the 100 or so helicopters ferrying help to isolated villages in the region by the middle of next month, according to the United Nations.

"If we do not reach all the most seriously injured in isolated villages within two weeks, we will face a second wave of deaths," UN humanitarian affairs spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told AFP.

Some 70,000 people in Pakistan were injured after the 7.6 magnitude earthquake levelled towns and isolated villages in northern Pakistan on October 8.

Estimates of the number without shelter range from 800,000 into the millions.

The UN, which is coordinating international aid, has so far collected 68 million dollars in cash and another 35 million dollars in pledges from donor governments for six months of emergency relief funding.

Annan was expected to lead calls for a swifter response, alongside Pakistan's minister of state for economic affairs, Hina Rabbani Khar and presidential economics advisor Salman Shah.

Pakistani officials said they were also looking towards long-term help to rebuild the region, with losses estimated at around five billion dollars.

While there were signs of a surge in aid with the arrival of more US military assistance on the ground, aid agencies were seeking the urgent delivery of shelter equipment that can withstand the Himalayan winter.

"We'll ask for a few more helicopters, but it's no longer the most essential thing. Now it's shelter, shelter, shelter," Byrs said. Some 200,000 tents are "in the pipeline" according to the UN.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy and his Swiss counterpart Micheline Calmy-Rey headed the list of ministers and senior national development or relief officials from western countries due at the Geneva meeting (1230 GMT).

Despite the shortfall in funds flowing through UN hands, aid sources indicated that overall funding and pledges, including bilateral assistance from countries offered directly to Pakistan, has reached 718 million dollars.

Some 164 million dollars has been paid out both within the UN-coordinated appeal and as bilateral aid, the sources said. Another 554 million dollars in pledges have been made.

The British aid charity Oxfam said Tuesday that rich countries were not giving enough for Pakistan.

The UN refugee agency said a chartered Boeing 747 cargo plane would multiply its ability to deliver the remaining 600 tonnes of supplies -- mainly shelter equipment -- from its warehouse in Turkey alongside a NATO-run airbridge.

"Certainly this is a race against time and the weather and we hope to get our material on the ground as soon as we possibly can," said Jennifer Pagonis, a spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

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