Oct. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan's government will immediately send two army divisions to areas hit by biggest earthquake in a hundred years to help in relief efforts hampered by bad weather and damaged roads.

The decision was announced on state-run television after President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz held an emergency meeting to discuss relief work. A division comprises about 6,000 soldiers in the Pakistan army.

The official death toll from the 7.6 magnitude earthquake on Oct. 8 is 23,000 and 50,000 injured, Aziz said. That's expected to rise as the army and relief workers reach remote villages and more bodies are pulled from the rubble of flattened cities like Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, and Balakot, the main centers closest to the earthquake.

``We need more help,'' Aziz said in a telephone interview late yesterday. The country needs more financial aid, tents, blankets, medicines and construction equipment, he said.

The United Nations yesterday appealed for $272 million to fund relief work. About 2.5 million are homeless, according to latest official estimates, Aziz told reporters yesterday.

``The rescue and rehabilitation is a challenge of unseen proportions,'' Aziz said.

Worst Affected

The Kashmir town of Muzaffarabad and Balakot in North West Frontier province are the most affected, he said. Damages will run in hundreds of millions of dollars, he said. Initial estimates on the cost may be available next week.

``Balakot reminds you of devastation at its extreme,'' Aziz said. ``The whole city has been flattened.''

The priority of the government is to transport the injured to hospitals and provide food and shelter, and to open roads blocked by landslides, he said.

Tens of thousands are without food and water and living outside, Aziz said. Temperatures will start falling soon in the area with the onset of winter which brings heavy snows, he said.

``People can't sleep in the snow,'' he said.

The first winter snow fell last night on the Indian side of the control line dividing the disputed territory of Kashmir, British Broadcasting Corp. reported today.

In Jammu and Kashmir state in India the death toll rose to 1,300, Farooq Ahmad Renzu, spokesman for the state government, said yesterday. About 4,500 people were injured, he said in a phone interview from Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir's summer capital.

Ferrying Supplies

The geography of north Pakistan and India is making it hard to ferry supplies and equipment because of the narrow roads and helicopters can't fly when clouds develop. In Pakistan, the northern area was hit by heavy snowfall last winter and floods and avalanches in January, the UN said earlier.

Thirty-five helicopters were taking part in rescue operations, including eight U.S. craft, Aziz said. Pakistan has received pledges from other countries totaling $300 million, Aziz said yesterday.

The Japanese government will supply two or three helicopters to Pakistan, Hiroyuki Hosoda, chief government spokesman, said today at a regular press briefing. ``We will dispatch them as soon as we can.''

The UN's $272 million appeal is to cover the main food, shelter, transport and medical needs of the affected population over the next six months, the world body's European information center said in a statement e-mailed yesterday from Brussels.

Survival Rations

Items such as tents, plastic sheets, blankets, mattresses, pre-cooked canned food, high-energy biscuits, survival rations, antibiotics, typhoid medicines, first aid and surgical kits, water purification tablets and helicopters are needed, the UN said.

An aid plane with 800 tents from Oxford, England-based charity Oxfam, and 19,000 blankets provided by Islamic Relief, another aid group, was scheduled to take off from England yesterday, Oxfam said in an e-mailed statement. The flight was due to land in Islamabad at about 5 a.m. today local time.

To contact the reporters on this story: Haris Zamir in Karachi at hzamir@bloomberg.net; Khalid Qayum in Islamabad, Pakistan at kqayum@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 12, 2005 04:24 EDT