Speaking at Pakistan's High Commission in London, top lawyer Cherie Blair compared the October 8 quake to the Indian Ocean tsunami and stressed that long-term aid is necessary.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has complained that the Western response to the earthquake has been sluggish compared with that following the December 26 tsunami because Westerners were not directly involved.

Blair said: "Pakistan has suffered a catastrophe as serious as the Asian tsunami that shook the world."

The quake, which measured 7.6 on the Richter scale, killed nearly 74,000 people and left a further three million homeless.

Blair noted that with the Himalayan winter setting in, the earthquake-stricken northern region faces a race against time.

She said helicopters cannot operate in some areas, while it is almost impossible to take aid by road to others.

"This is not something that we are going to transform overnight," Blair said.

"We have to be there for the long haul. This is a lasting human tragedy.

"Widows and orphans will need help not just in weeks to come, not just in months to come, but over the years to come."

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