Survivors cry for aid

Two women sit under tents erected inside a graveyard in Yogyakarta yesterday. Countries across the world dispatched aid for tens of thousands of earthquake victims in Indonesia as the United Nations issued an urgent call for field hospitals, medical supplies and tents. The death toll from the Indonesian earthquake reaches 5,700. PHOTO: AFP

The death toll from Saturday's powerful earthquake rose past 5,698 but the most urgent task was to get help to the remainder of the 200,000 displaced persons who had yet to receive medical aid or food.

As the world rallied by providing aid, emergency relief teams and cash pledges, the United Nations said the relief effort on Indonesia's main island of Java was largely under control -- but cautioned that problems remained.

Despite the ramped-up aid effort involving troops, volunteers and overseas medics, pockets of victims in the worst-hit areas south and east of the ancient city of Yogyakarta said they had not yet received badly-needed supplies.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited survivors camping out near the damaged Prambanan Hindu temple complex early Tuesday and pledged that food and medical aid would reach them soon.

"We are giving priority to the victims -- those who are injured, the sick, those who need surgery and also refugees who lost their homes and other belongings," he told reporters at the compound, a Unesco heritage site.

"We are prioritising the medical treatments to save as many lives as possible," the president added later as he toured a makeshift camp in hard-hit Klaten district east of Yogyakarta.

Doctors at a Singapore army field hospital set up in a devastated rural area of Bantul, the district south of Yogyakarta, began receiving patients as medical relief efforts intensified.

"We have seen about 50 patients so far," said Major Adrian Tan.

"We're talking about fractures, soft-tissue injuries after the rubble has fallen," he added, saying a few patients had suspected infections of their wounds.

The Indonesian army deployed at least 2,000 soldiers to assist with relief efforts, Army Chief General Joko Santoso said, while dozens of United States military doctors and nurses arrived in the area.

Australia ordered more than 80 disaster experts and medical personnel to the worst-hit areas, in what Foreign Minister Alexander Downer characterised as part of "a hugely expanded emergency response".

The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) ferried in more than 40 tons of supplies, including emergency rations, tents, blankets, portable water treatment units and generators.

The UN set up a coordination centre at Yogyakarta airport to organise the flow of help.

But some victims grumbled that relief was too slow and too meagre.

In Klaten and Bantul districts, beggars held cardboard boxes daubed with the words, "Asking for aid".

"If we don't, how do we get money?" asked Budi, 18, whose box was empty as he waited for donations with a handful of other young men.

"Yesterday we got 40,000 rupiah (4.35 US dollars)," which villagers spent on cooking oil and food, said Wawan, 28, adding that government aid of three packets of instant noodles per family was far from sufficient.

But the beggars slowed relief efforts as they put chairs, oil drums and stones in the road to slow drivers and ask for money.

A stream of aid trucks was caught in a major traffic jam stretching some 10km on the main highway, the Detikcom online news service reported.

Hospitals were anxiously awaiting the arrival of additional medical staff and supplies to treat the injured who overflowed from their wards, raising fears of the spread of disease in the wet and poor sanitary conditions.