The Kashmir earthquake has caused more devastation than the Indian Ocean tsunami, a top United Nations official said today.

Hussein Gezairy, the head of the World Health Organisation regional office which covers Pakistan, told reporters in Islamabad that the logistical difficulties of helping earthquake victims in the Himalayas were "much, much" greater than helping the tsunami survivors.

"The devastation is much bigger than the tsunami and much bigger definitely than what happened in the United States with Katrina hurricane," Mr Gezairy said.

"In the tsunami 1.5 million people were made homeless, but in this case we expect more than 2.5 million to be homeless."

Mr Gezairy acknowledged that the death toll in the Boxing Day tsunami was far higher. Some 217,000 people were killed when giant waves battered 11 Indian Ocean countries.

According to current official estimates, Saturday’s earthquake killed 25,000 people in Pakistan and 1,300 in India, although the figures are expected to rise.

But Mr Gezairy warned that it would be far more difficult to reach the many thousands of earthquake victims still cut off in the mountains.

"The tsunami was all along the coasts, no roads or bridges were destroyed and the damage was a few hundred metres inside," he said.

"During the tsunami it was possible to have some ships, and in this case only helicopters can reach the disaster areas, but they cannot transport a large number of people and equipment. It is much, much more difficult than the tsunami."

He added that with winter approaching the survivors faced much harsher conditions. Snow has started to fall in parts of Kashmir.

The stark analysis came as Jan Egeland, the UN Emergency Relief Co-ordinator, flew to the devastated Kashmiri city of Muzaffarabad, the centre of the quake.

Clearly shocked by what he saw, he warned that time was running out to help the many mountain settlements cut off by landslips, which have blocked roads or swept them away completely.

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