Workers from Indonesia to India rushed to bury corpses to ward off disease today as cargo planes touched down with promised aid – from lentils to water purifiers – to help the region cope with its tsunami catastrophe.

The confirmed deaths in a mammoth Asian quake and tsunami soared above 60,000 today as worst-hit Indonesia readied bulldozers to dig mass graves for corpses in a rush to ward off disease, which the UN health agency said could double the toll.

Paramedics today began vaccinating more than 65,000 refugees in the south of India as authorities rushed aid to survivors of the tsunami that killed at least 4,400 people in India and left 8,000 missing, many of them feared dead, officials said.