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A month after quake, misery still ahead
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-09 00:47

Despite weeks of apocalyptic predictions from senior U.N. officials, aid money simply has not come through.

The United Nations said Tuesday it has received about $85 million of the $550 million it has asked for, with about $49 million more pledged. An additional $42.6 million is needed just to get through November, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Monday from Geneva.

Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf at first avoided criticizing the international community but last week lashed out at what he called a double standard, saying Western disaster victims would get more help.

"I know that the contributions to Katrina were much more. Did the U.S. need more aid than Pakistan and ... these poor people in these remote areas?" Musharraf told the British Broadcasting Corp. on Saturday.

A month after the Indian Ocean tsunami — which killed hundreds of Western tourists in addition to the tens of thousands of residents — the U.N. and aid agencies had taken in more than $4 billion in pledges, and humanitarian coordinator Egeland hailed the response as historic.

Egeland said Monday that things are improving, but not fast enough.

"We're all slightly more optimistic than we were two weeks ago, but the second wave of deaths is to some extent happening as we speak," he said from the United Nations in New York. "I hope we can meet the test, but on that the jury is still out."

Egeland had warned ahead of an Oct. 26 donors conference in Geneva that if donors did not give money soon, there would be consequences. They didn't, and aid officials now say the results are being felt on the ground.

"We couldn't go ahead with a tent pipeline distribution because we didn't have the money," Action for Hunger spokesman John Sauer told The Associated Press.

Paul Miller, CEO of the aid group Plan International, which focuses on children, said the lack of donor funds, inaccessible mountain terrain and oncoming winter have combined in "a perfect storm" hampering relief efforts.
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