UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned Thursday that thousands more people could die in earthquake-ravaged Pakistan if countries don't boost their aid commitments.

"A second, massive wave of death will happen if we do not step up our efforts now," Annan said, referring to the Oct. 8 earthquake that killed as many as 79,000 people in Pakistan and India.

The UN leader said emergency officials need trucks, helicopters, cranes, tents and blankets to save an estimated three million people who are homeless because of the quake.

Jan Egeland, UN Emergency relief coordinator, "NATO should organize a huge airlift project to save lives".

The money to pay for those things has been lacking, said Annan.

"So far, we have received firm commitments for only 12 per cent of our appeal. That is $37 million US out of the $312 million that we need."

The UN's appeal for aid commitments were more than 80 per cent funded only 10 days after the Dec. 26 Indian Ocean tsunami, Annan pointed out.

Kashmiri girl unloaded from helicopter in Muzaffarabad, Wednesday Oct. 19. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

"There are no excuses," he said of the current aid drive. "If we are to show ourselves worthy of calling ourselves members of humankind, we must rise to this challenge."

Relief boss suggests mass evacuation

Another high-ranking UN official, emergency relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland, said Thursday that NATO should organize a huge airlift project to save lives.

Egeland suggested the international military alliance should evacuate tens of thousands of people from their destroyed Kashmir villages before winter sets in.

For the past week, NATO has been delivering several tonnes of aid supplies every day from its base in Germany. It added another "air bridge" from its base in Turkey on Wednesday.

A massive airlift effort organized by the military is needed "to get supplies in and people out," Egeland told CBC News on Thursday.

He added that in order to house everybody who is still homeless, "350,000 tents, which is a mind-boggling number, more than we know exist in the world, are needed..."

"We have emptied all of our warehouses."

Fewer medical evacuations, more relief

The push to prevent a second wave of deaths has resulted in rescuers making a difficult decision. As of this weekend, they will turn away from a frantic effort to treat the 67,000 injured by the quake in favour of getting life-saving supplies to the homeless.

"It's a tough call but we have to face the fact that we're going to save more lives by getting tents, shelter, food, these supplies up to the people who have nothing [rather] than continuing to bring the injured down," said Capt. Edward Parsons, a Canadian with the UN's Humanitarian Relief Operation in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

Helicopters are travelling to remote mountain villages to drop relief supplies and pick up the injured in an operation they call "double-tasking.".

Parsons said the medical airlifts are proving too time-consuming, given how much good can be done by increasing the speed of aid shipments.