BAGH, Pakistan – Below-freezing temperatures and the first snowfall in Kashmir claimed the life of an infant Monday, the first reported victim of what officials fear will be a new disaster for millions of Pakistanis left homeless by an earthquake.

A middle-aged man with terminal cancer also died after he was taken to a NATO hospital suffering from hypothermia.

“This is exactly what we had feared. Our position here is we need to continue to do as much as possible to help mitigate this situation and prevent, insofar as that’s possible, any such occurrences in the future,” said Stephanie Bunker of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Another United Nations official, Elisabeth Byrs, said the relief effort remains underfunded and that, according to the Pakistani military, at least 300,000 people remain inaccessible in remote Himalayan regions. None has tents, she said.

Troops and aid workers are building shelters as fast as they can. But with heavy rains and a fresh blanket of snow over the last two days heralding the onset of the region’s harsh winter, it is not fast enough for those who have been living rough since the Oct. 8 earthquake that killed more than 87,000 people.

“It is only the beginning of winter. We are concerned,” said Byrs, spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Geneva. “The race to provide suitable shelter in time is not lost yet, but the consequences resulting from a lack of funds could result in more deaths of vulnerable people” such as the elderly and infants.

Of the 500,000 tents the United Nations purchased and stockpiled for quake relief, about 165,000 have yet to be delivered, with weather conditions worsening every day, she said.

Stoves and corrugated iron sheeting also are urgently required, as many tents are not winterized, Byrs said. So far, the U.N. has received $216 million in emergency relief funds, only 39 percent of its appeal for $550 million.

All helicopters were grounded Sunday because of bad weather and they did not resume flying until later Monday, Byrs said. She said UNICEF, the U.N.’s children agency, already reported difficulties transporting water and sanitation gear into the Niloum Valley.

The season’s first snow fell on mountains near Muzaffarabad and elsewhere late Saturday. Downpours and snowfalls continued Monday.

“If we don’t get people into shelters, they will die. It’s as simple as that,” said Air Commodore Andrew Walton, commander of the NATO disaster response team in Pakistan.

“That’s the second disaster that’s waiting to happen if we in the international community don’t do something about it,” he said at a NATO field hospital in Bagh, a town in Pakistan’s part of disputed Kashmir.