Special UN teams were deployed to urban tented camps in the devastated Himalayan region to help survivors put up tents that collapsed due to heavy rain, snow and high winds at the weekend, officials said.

But tens of thousands of people had to fend for themselves in isolated villages left cut off from the world by landslides and snow on the ground and low cloud in the air.

"We could not fly from Islamabad today due to poor weather. We are watching for the weather to clear," UN spokesman Ben Malor told AFP.

Relief flights were halted on Sunday as the rain and snow hit Pakistan-administered Kashmir and North West Frontier Province, where a massive 7.6 magnitude quake killed more than 73,000 people in October.

Meteorologists said the cold spell would continue till Wednesday.

"We could not sleep the whole night because it was so cold and the rain was hitting the tents," said survivor Muhammad Mashkoor as he dug a drainage ditch around his tent in a camp in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir.

"We have eight people including four children sheltered in two tents," added Mashkoor, who has abandoned his destroyed home in the nearby Neelum valley and taken refuge here.

"Rapid response" teams comprising UN, military and government officials were helping to re-erect sodden tents in crowded refugee camps, officials said.

"The teams will help survivors reassemble tents and dig drainage, where necessary," said Larry Hollingworth, deputy humanitarian coordinator at the UN emergency coordinator center in the ruined city.

"The people are very stressed because of the shelter problem. We have been looking at heating arrangements as an overall problem," Hollingworth added, adding that efforts were under way to bring in communal heating.

On Monday landslides again blocked two key roads in the Neelum and Jhelum valleys leading out of Muzaffarabad. Officials said military engineers and bulldozers were trying to clear them.

"We have dumped essential supplies in the two valleys which can last three months in case landslides and snow cut them off," said Sardar Nawaz Khan, the Kashmir government's camp management commissioner.

"We are also providing one kerosene stove to each family so that they can cook and warm their tents, but also providing firefighting equipment and safety training to eliminate the danger of tent blazes," Khan said.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.