The United Nations and Red Cross increased their separate appeals for emergency funding to half a billion dollars as a meeting with some 60 donor nations began here.

"While no one today could have had the power to prevent the earthquake from happening, we do have the power to stop the next wave: the deaths and despair caused by freezing temperatures and disease, by lack of shelter, food and water," Annan told the delegates, including several ministers.

Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the UN humanitarian coordinator's office (OCHA), earlier told AFP: "The revised appeal is 549.6 million dollars,"

Annan urged governments and even individuals to overcome their weariness with a parade of disasters this year and to match the unprecedented outpouring of generosity that followed the Indian Ocean tsunami.

"We need the support of governments, private citizens, the private sector and anyone who can spare a euro, a pound or a dollar," Annan told journalists.

"It is urgent and it is desperate."

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, which also took part in the meeting, doubled its appeal for 570,000 survivors in the worst-hit areas to 152 million Swiss francs (117 million dollars, 98 million euros).

Officials warned that many relief agencies were running out of funding, hampering the delivery of crucial supplies and care to the area before winter snow threatens to ground the relief effort next month.

"We need more resources to save two to three million lives," UN emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland told reporters.

"It is a deadline. This is a line of life or death for tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people in the Himalayas," he added.

Relief agencies are trying to rush shelter and medical treatment to villages in the mountainous region before they are cut off by winter snow within around three weeks.

The Red Cross warned in a statement Wednesday that thousands of the most vulnerable survivors in remote villages could die of exposure, nearly three weeks after the quake left 54,000 people dead and some 77,000 injured.

Some 700,000 people have received food but another 1.6 million are in need of sustenance, Egeland said.

About 120,000 tents have been delivered while 200,000 more are on their way for up to 3.3 million homeless.

One third of the injured quake victims who had received medical treatment had hands or arms amputated because they had been left with wounds for too long, Egeland revealed.

The UN has been struggling to fill its current appeal of 312 million dollars for emergency assistance over six months.

It has received 68 million dollars in committed cash and another 28 million dollars in pledges from donors. The total amount represents just 17 percent of the new appeal, Byrs underlined.

By contrast, the Red Cross appears to have generated a better response, receiving 42 million Swiss francs and pledges for a further 35 million, largely covering its earlier 73 million Swiss franc appeal for funding.

"I hope we will be able to announce tonight we will have the resources we need," Egeland said.

Pakistan's Senate chairman, Muhammad Soomro, and presidential advisor Salman Shah outlined the extent of destruction of life and property in Pakistan caused by the 7.6 magnitude earthquake.

The quake devastated an area of more than 28,000 square kilometressquare miles), depriving more than 1.1 million people of their jobs and reducing thousands of schools and hospitals to rubble, according to Pakistani officials.

"This is the time when the world has to come to our support," Soomro said.

Byrs said the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), which is delivering urgently needed tents, and the World Food Programme, which provides food rations, were short of funding.

Bad weather has been forecast in the region this week, while snowfall is expected to ground most of the 72 helicopters currently ferrying help to isolated villages in the region in about three weeks, according to the UN.

Aid is filtering through by air, truck, mules and by foot, the Red Cross said.

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