As time starts to run short for finding survivors under the rubble, those left alive after Saturday's earthquake are getting increasingly desperate for help.

"We are not getting aid. We are starving, the children are starving as well," one woman said in Urdu.

"There is nothing to buy, nothing to sleep on, no mats. We don't have anything. Please take our voice to President (Pervez) Musharraf."

"We are doing whatever is humanly possible," Musharraf told reporters. "There should not be any blame game. We are trying to reach all those areas where people need our help."

While rescuers are still finding survivors, a lack of resources is frustrating efforts.

"There are many more alive inside, but we can't take them all out because we don't have government efforts here," said Sadan Khattak, a student from Peshawar on the border with Afghanistan.

"They are not helping us out," he said of the Pakistani government. "Otherwise we could have taken them out much earlier."

There is no power or water in the worst-hit zones, and landslides in mountainous areas have rendered roads impassable.

Indian soldiers were packing supplies on their backs to deliver supplies to some isolated areas.

However, survivors say the effort is too little, too late.

In Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, a city official said that 90 per cent of the city was destroyed.

"Bodies are scattered in the city," said Masood-ur Rehman, an assistant city commissioner. "Ninety percent of victims are still buried under the debris. We are helpless. The city is out of order."

The death toll there is estimated at 11,000.

There are reports of scuffling between shopkeepers and those in a desperate hunt for food.

Children main victims

Pakistan's chief military spokesman said an entire generation has been wiped out in the areas worst hit by Saturday's massive earthquake.

Major General Shaukat Sultan told the AFP news agency that children had been the biggest casualties.

Thousands died when school buildings collapsed on them in the country's worst natural disaster on record.

Rescuers pulled Muhammad Farhad, 9, alive from a school's ruins in Balakot, Pak. on Sunday, but his brother died.

"We were having reading lessons," he said in Urdu, "when suddenly there was a big noise and the roof collapsed on us."

Death toll estimates range from 20,000 to 30,000, but some reports put the toll as high as 40,000. At least 43,000 are injured.

Senior officials in Pakistan's portion of Kashmir put the death toll much higher than official reports suggest.

The top elected official in the region, Sardar Sikandar Hayat, said that more than 25,000 people had died there with "countless" injured. Tariq Mahmood, the province's communications minister, put the toll at over 30,000.

The United Nations said more than 2.5 million people have been left homeless and appealed for donations, including for at least 200,000 winterized tents.

Overnight lows are dipping into the five-degree Celsius range.

Most of the dead were in Pakistan's mountainous north. India reported more than 800 deaths and Afghanistan reported four.

A doctor, Iqbal Khan, said there was a serious risk of diseases such as diarrhea and pneumonia if drinking water and other relief supplies do not arrive quickly.

"These people feel as if there is no one to take care of them," he told AP.

International relief efforts

Pakistan said it would accept relief aid for earthquake victims from its longtime rival India.

The move that carries immense political implications for the neighbours who have fought three wars since their partition and independence from British rule in 1947. Two of those wars have been over the Kashmir region.

India's Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran said his country would send tents, food, blankets and medicine to the Pakistani portion of Kashmir.

The announcement came after Musharraf appealed for urgent help, particularly cargo helicopters to reach remote areas.

However, he would not accept helicopters from India or conduct joint searches.

U.S. forces in Afghanistan sent five Chinook transport helicopters and three Blackhawk helicopters to Pakistan Monday to help ferry relief supplies.

Col. James Yonts gave one reason for the assistance: "We in the US military and US government stands ready to respond. And that is what this shows to them, that we are ready to respond to help out a trusted ally in the war on terror."

Other international aid, including emergency rescue workers, has started flowing in. Planes arrived from Turkey, Britain, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. Russia, China and Germany have also offered assistance.

The quake was felt across a wide swath of South Asia, with damage spanning at least 400 km, from Jalalabad in Afghanistan to Srinagar in northern Indian territory.

With reports from CTV's Murray Oliver and Matt McClure