The World Food Program (WFP) is mobilizing urgent relief, including a planned airlift of 120 tons of high energy biscuits to quake-hit Pakistan, the UN food aid agency said on Monday.

The vitamin-fortified biscuits will provide life-saving energy and strength to some 240,000 victims of the Oct. 8 disaster for five days, it said in a press release.

The WFP is using up to 500,000 US dollars from its emergency response account to fund its initial food assistance, and a wider appeal for relief assistance to underwrite the agency's emergency food and logistics operation in the region may be launched in the next few days, it added.

"Many of these people have already been hit by huge natural disasters this year. This makes it even more imperative that there are no delays in the international community's response," said Amir Abdulla, regional director for theh WFP's operations in the Middle East, Central Asia and Eastern Europe.

The quake, registered 7.6 magnitude on the open-ended Richter scale, rocked a large area of South Asia on Saturday morning, with its epicenter in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir.

According to the Pakistani government, more than 19,000 people died and 42,000 were injured in the disaster.

The WFP also said it sent teams Monday to the worst-affected areas.

Source: Xinhua