Survivors just a few miles from aid distribution centres in Indonesia said today they’re still waiting for emergency food nearly a week after an earthquake shattered their homes.

Regions previously not reached by relief teams in remote areas of Indonesia’s quake zone reported hundreds of additional deaths, pushing the death toll from last weekend’s disaster to more than 6,200, officials said today.

International rescue workers today rushed to get medical care, water and shelter to some 650,000 people displaced by Indonesia’s earthquake, aided by the reopening of the airport closest to the disaster zone.

Rescuers said hopes of finding more survivors from a devastating earthquake that killed more than 5,400 people were waning today, as aid workers from around the world arrived in the disaster zone in central Indonesia.

A trickle of aid began reaching survivors of the Indonesian earthquake that killed more than 5,400 over the weekend, but desperate villagers said today the meagre deliveries were not enough.

A powerful earthquake flattened buildings in central Indonesia early today, killing at least 2,500 people and injuring thousands more in the country’s worst disaster since the 2004 tsunami.

A powerful earthquake flattened buildings in central Indonesia early today, killing up to 1,325 people and leaving overwhelmed doctors begging for help, a government official said.

German authorities have confirmed the country’s first case of the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain in domestic poultry, the Social Affairs Ministry of the state of Saxony said today.

An Indonesian government agency said today that recovery workers pulled 240 more bodies from debris left by the December 26 earthquake and tsunami that hit Aceh province, bringing the country’s death toll to 123,597.

Indonesian officials have said that recovery workers pulled 1,165 more bodies from debris left after the December 26 earthquake and tsunami that hit Aceh province, bringing the country’s death toll to 121,347.

Indonesia’s Health Ministry said today that more than 220,000 are dead or missing from the St Stephen's Day tsunami - much higher than its previous estimate of about 182,000 dead and missing.

Indonesia’s Health Ministry declared more than 70,000 people previously listed as missing as dead tonight, significantly raising the estimated death toll from last month’s tsunami.

INDONESIA yesterday ordered foreign aid workers in tsunami-devastated Aceh province to have military escorts in areas facing violence by insurgents, even as the vice-president welcomed a cease-fire offer by the rebels.

The military was preparing to dig mass graves today on Indonesia’s battered Sumatra Island, where the government said the official death toll from an earthquake and tsunamis had reached more than 32,000.

The death toll from the killer waves unleashed across the Indian Ocean by the megaquake climbed inexorably toward 50,000 tonight.

They struggled to bury the dead and desperate residents looted shops on Indonesia’s Sumatra Island today, where the earthquake and tsunamis killed up to 25,000 people, according to government estimates.

German officials were today testing two sheep found dead with symptoms of foot-and-mouth disease.