Quake Survivors Desperate for Aid

Indonesian Villagers Lacking Basics As Official Death Toll Surpasses 5,400

JAMPRIP, Indonesia, May 30 -- Homeless earthquake survivors living in rice fields and makeshift shacks begged for food and water under a blazing sun Monday as the death toll from Saturday's quake continued to rise.

Indonesia's Social Affairs Ministry on Tuesday raised the official death toll to 5,427.

Soldiers began delivering bags of rice Monday to village chiefs in the mountainous quake zone on the island of Java, but survivors called the aid meager and slow. The United Nations planned a global appeal, saying relief money was running low.

"We have 300 families in this village and have only gotten two sacks of rice," said Lastri, 27, holding a 5-month-old child. "It's not enough."

Thousands of people including children and the elderly lined main roads in the area of the 6.3-magnitude quake, holding out whatever containers they could find for donations to buy rice, oil and candles.

"Please give me something, I'm hungry," 7-year-old Sari told passing drivers, standing beside a group of children carrying banners that read "We have not gotten any aid" and "Help us."

Explaining the continuing rise in the official toll, Indonesia's Social Affairs Ministry said Monday that about 800 bodies that were buried in mass graves immediately after the quake had just been counted.

A plane chartered by UNICEF, the U.N. children's agency, touched down near the disaster area, and the United States, which pledged $2.5 million, said 100 military doctors and nurses were en route with surgical, dental and other equipment. But rough roads in mountainous central Java and new cracks in the runway at the region's main airport hampered delivery efforts.

In Jamprip, a village of 300 families, Edi Sutrisno, 37, helped unload aid from a military truck -- two bags of rice, nine boxes of dried noodles and two boxes of bottled water. "It's the first we've gotten since the quake," he said. "Of course it's not enough for all of us, not even for a day."

A group of teenagers raced up to a slowing truck and managed to steal supplies off the back, but their excitement was short-lived. "I thought it was food, but it was just soap and toothbrushes," said Andi Marwanto, 16.

The government said an estimated 200,000 people were homeless, most living in improvised shacks close to their former homes or in shelters erected in rice fields. Hospitals overflowed with bloodied survivors. Power was still out in much of the quake region, which covers hundreds of square miles.

Compounding the devastation were fears of an eruption of nearby Mount Merapi, which has been belching gas and lava for weeks, and a scientist said its volcanic activity had increased threefold since the quake.

Lava and hot clouds of gas were avalanching 2 1/2 miles down the volcano's slopes Monday, said volcanologist Subandriyo, who like many Indonesians uses only one name.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited refugees Monday and acknowledged a "lack of coordination" in aid distribution. He urged government officials to be "more agile."

More than 20 countries have contributed or pledged assistance, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in Geneva. The agency said it had released $100,000 in emergency funds to jump-start the relief effort but that it would need much more.

Indonesia said it hoped foreign aid would account for 50 percent of the $108 million to $161 million in estimated rehabilitation costs.

The quake was the fourth destructive temblor to hit Indonesia in the past 17 months, including the one that led to the Dec. 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami that left at least 216,000 dead or missing.