International donors rushed to ferry relief supplies to northern Pakistan today as the estimated death toll from the country's worst earthquake climbed towards 40,000.

More than two million people have been left homeless by the 7.6-magnitude earthquake, which hit Pakistani-administered Kashmir on Saturday morning and sent tremors across the region between Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.

With landslides blocking roads to many of the worst-hit areas, Pakistan’s army was flying food, water and medicine into the disaster zone. Dozens of flights carrying rescue teams and supplies arrived in Islamabad, including eight US military helicopters flown in from Afghanistan.

Washington pledged up to $50 million in relief and reconstruction aid. "The magnitude of this disaster is utterly overwhelming," said the US ambassador, Ryan Crocker. "We have under way the beginning of a very major relief effort."

And, in an important piece of political symbolism, Pakistan said it was accepting an offer of help from its great rival, India. The Indian Government will send 25 tonnes of basic supplies, including blankets, tents and mattresses, but Indian troops will not join the relief effort.

The mountainous province of Kashmir was the worst hit by the earthquake, but the effects of the quake were felt in a 300-mile belt from Jalabad in Afghanistan to Srinagar in northern India. Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir, was razed to the ground.

"It is a whole generation that has been lost," said Major General Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan's military spokesman.

"Rescuers are pulling out dead children in Muzaffarabad, but there is no-one to claim the bodies. The parents, too, are dead."

The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) said that between 30,000 and 40,000 people had died. The figure is likely to rise further as rescue teams reach isolated towns and villages whose water supplies, power and road links have been wiped out.

The Disasters Emergency Committee, which represents 13 UK aid organisations, was meeting today to co-ordinate Britain's response. It plans to launch a joint appeal on British television this evening, along the lines of that launched after December's Indian Ocean tsunami. Repairing water supplies and sanitation are crucial. Downing Street has pledged £500,000 in aid. Oxfam reported that its own appeal generated £50,000 in its first hour.

In harrowing scenes repeated across north-western Pakistan and Pakistani-held Kashmir, parents were scrabbling at the rubble of collapsed schools with their bare hands to find their children.

In the town of Balakot, described as the quake's "ground zero", a boy aged six and girl of four were pulled out alive after surviving two days beneath the rubble of their school.

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Fish and chip shops ‘selling cobbler as cod’
• T in the Park festival at Kinross
• How to get Madonna’s Thighs