Pakistan is pleased with pledges by international donors to provide extra funds to assist earthquake victims but hopes the aid effort will continue, Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said here Thursday.

"The government of Pakistan is very pleased with the support" announced Wednesday at a meeting in Geneva, where donors promised an extra 580 million US dollars after the United Nations and relief agencies warned funding so far was woefully inadequate, he said.

Pakistan is "eternally grateful" for the assistance provided thus far to victims of the Oct. 8 earthquake, which left tens of thousands of people dead and hundreds of thousands of people living in remote and mountainous areas cut off from the world, he said.

"We are very encouraged" by the meeting in Geneva, Aziz told a group of reporters after attending a meeting in Moscow. "Naturally we hope the process will continue. It is a major human tragedy we are dealing with," he said.

Aziz said his government was addressing the disaster on two levels: a short-term rescue and relief effort, currently in progress, and a longer-term reconstruction and rehabilitation that would require more international assistance in the future.

"The good news is that nobody is short of food and medicines" at present, he added.

Source: Xinhua