Oxfam Director, Barbara Stocking, who is in Pakistan, called upon the international community to honour its pledges to avert another humanitarian catastrophe in the affected areas in harsh winter.
"The international community has still not responded with urgently needed resources to the thousands of earthquake survivors," she said while addressing a news conference here on Friday after returning from a two days visit to the earthquake-effected areas.
Giving details, she said, "survivors are in miserable conditions and the worsening weather threatened their lives. People I met in the camps told me that they were worried about their children because many have fallen ill owing to the cold".
She said: "We're in a race against time as large number of survivors need protection from severe winter conditions as well as sustained help to rebuild their lives".
Oxfam director said that working closely with local people and organisations, Oxfam was involved in 114 camps in Azad Jamu and Kashmir (AJK) and NWFP.
Providing safe water and sanitation facilities in the often crowded camps was Oxfam's priority in the immediate aftermath of the catastrophe, she added.
The key aims now, she said, included providing more warmth for tent dwellers- by sending more blankets, winterised tents etc - meeting the needs of the spontaneous camps that were springing up spontaneously without official organisation or support, and help people who had decided to stay higher up in the mountains.
"We've already reached almost 150,000 people through our water, sanitation and public health services, and we aim to help up to 500,000 by February," said Stocking.
How these facilities were organised was critical, she said the privacy of women, for example, was an important issue.
She said besides the immediate threat posed by the falling temperatures, Oxfam was concerned about the earthquake survivors' fate in the long term.
She said it was important for such people to know what their entitlements are. "People need clear information about what's going to happen to them," she added.
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