The 81-year-old US statesman met Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf to discuss aid efforts and plans to rebuild the areas that were shattered by the October 8 disaster, the Associated Press of Pakistan reported.

"Our hearts go out to the quake survivors and we fully share the sorrow, the tragedy inflicted on the families of victims," Bush was quoted as saying by the news agency.

Musharraf thanked the United Nations for its help and said he hoped that pledges made by the international community would materialize in time to rehabilitate the region quickly, it said.

Bush was appointed last month by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan as his special representative for the quake, which killed about 73,000 people in Pakistan and 1,300 in India, as well as leaving 3.5 million homeless.

The United Nations has launched an aid appeal for around 550 million dollars, while Pakistan has received aid pledges of more than six billion dollars, of which two billion dollars is in the form of grants.

Aid flights to quake-hit Pakistani-administered Kashmir and North West Frontier Province were suspended for a second day Monday due to heavy snow and rain. The bad weather is due to last until Wednesday.

Bush joined forces with another former US president, Bill Clinton, to raise funds after Hurricane Katrina flooded and destroyed large parts of the southern US city of New Orleans last year.

Clinton is serving as UN special envoy for tsunami recovery in the wake of the December 2004 Indian Ocean disaster that killed around 220,000 people.

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