New York:
The United Nations on Thursday urged governments and people around the world to open their wallets to help the 20 million Pakistani flood victims in desperate need of food, shelter and clean water, appearing to move closer to meeting its target of 460 million US dollars in immediate aid after various nations significantly upped their pledges.
The rush of promised help came after UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, addressing a hastily arranged meeting of the General Assembly on Thursday, urged governments and the public to be even more generous than in previous major disasters, because the floods were a bigger "global disaster".
Pakistan's government says more than 20 million people are in desperate need of food, shelter and clean water.
Ban said that before the meeting donors had given half the sum the UN appealed for; only half of the 460 million US dollars to provide vital supplies over the next three months.
Ban said all the money was urgently needed now - and much more would be needed to rebuild Pakistan.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said he was assured that the 460 million US dollar goal was "going to be easily met," including "100 million US dollars plus" from Saudi Arabia.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that the United States, already the biggest donor, would contribute an additional 60 million US dollars, bringing its total to more than 150 million US dollars.
She said approximately 92 million US dollars will support the UN's 460 million US dollar appeal, which aims to provide food, shelter and clean water to more than six million flood victims over the next three months.
Qureshi also said that China had increased their cash assistance, supplied relief goods and taken responsibility for providing food, water and shelter to some 27-thousand people in an inaccessible area in the north.
The UN wants to spotlight the enormity of the disaster, which is bigger than the 2004 Asian tsunami, the 2005 Pakistan earthquake, and this year's Haiti earthquake, yet has attracted far less in donations.
Qureshi said Pakistan was facing one of its greatest challenges - tens of thousands of villages submerged, around 1,500 people killed, and more than 20 million affected - and desperately needed international help because its own resources were insufficient.
The Pakistani government has been strongly criticised for failing to respond quickly to the floods, and Qureshi acknowledged the scepticism and criticism.
Qureshi said Pakistan had not reduced its military forces fighting the extremists or militants, but he said there would now be an additional challenge of dealing with the floods and rebuilding water-ravaged areas.
For the United States, Pakistan is vital for its strategic goals of defeating militancy and stabilising neighbouring Afghanistan.