Many tents handed out to victims are not designed for winter, while complacency about the aid given so far was a bigger enemy than the weather and the rugged terrain, UN emergency coordinator Jan Vandemoortele said.

"The situation remains very difficult and indeed we are on a knife's edge," Vandemoortele told a news conference in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.

The October 8 earthquake killed more than 73,000 people in Pakistan and 1,300 in India, but the focus now is on the 3.5 million underfed people facing winter without homes.

The three biggest needs were providing heating for freezing families; corrugated iron sheets so quake victims can build shelters from the rubble of their homes; and winterised tents, Vandemoortele said.

There were encouraging aspects to the aid effort but massive problems remained, adding: "We have got two versions of the story, of the glass being half full and half empty."

Darren Boisvert of the International Organisation for Migration, which is leading efforts to provide shelter, warned that 90 percent of the 420,000 tents handed out "are not winterized".

But Vandemoortele stressed that most people were using blankets and plastic sheeting to bring their tents up to standard to get through the winter.

"When we say that 90 percent of tents are not winterized, it does not mean that they are inadequate, the proportion of tents that is not adequate is much, much smaller," he said.

People were starting to rebuild homes or put up temporary shelter thanks to government compensation and aid agency schemes, he added.

Pakistan's quake relief chief, Major General Farooq Ahmed Khan, told a separate news conference that army engineers were helping villagers to construct at least one warm room with material retrieved from the rubble.

Meanwhile emergency food stocks were being built up, but rations had been cut so they could last longer. Schools had restarted, but many were in tents where students had to battle against the cold, the UN's Vandemoortele added.

He said that while there had been no disease epidemics and immunisation campaigns were underway, there had been numerous cases of pneumonia and diarrhoea.

Contributions to the UN's flash appeal of 550 million dollars for emergency aid had increased over the last month but it was still only 41 percent funded after two months.

Vanedemoortele said that "irrational exuberance" about the amount of relief goods distributed and the cash flow situation "would be unwise, in fact it could be deadly."

"The worst enemies we face are not the mountains and not the winter, the worst enemies we face are complacency and pessimism," he added.

In India's zone of Kashmir, villagers who lost their homes said they feared they may die if they are forced to spend the winter in tents.

"We're dying out here in tents," said Sakina Banu, 34, housed in a tent in Kalgai village in the badly-hit district of Uri. Her nine-year-old daughter died last week after developing a fever.

Eight people including two Turkish aid workers have been hospitalised with serious burns after their tents caught fire in Pakistan, health officials said Friday.

The United Nations downplayed the impact of Pakistan's decision not to extend the 90-day mission for around 1,000 NATO troops helping with the relief effort.

It said it hoped they would leave behind their medical equipment when they depart. A Canadian disaster response team said Friday it had donated its health clinic to the Pakistani Red Crescent Society as they prepared to return home.

Pakistan's government has faced pressure from religious hardliners not to allow western troops to stay in the country for too long.

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