Hope Fades for Further Quake Survivors

Search teams combing the rubble on Indonesia's Nias Island for survivors of Monday night's earthquake yesterday accepted that it was unlikely they would find any more people alive.

François Desruisseaux, the UN operations coordinator in the island's main town, Gunung Sitoli, said it was very rare for anyone to survive more than four days. "The first four days is the critical period," he told the Guardian. "If we don't find anyone today, and we haven't received reports from locals that there are still voices being heard, then it is unlikely we will."

The death toll is currently confirmed at about 500 but the UN estimates it will rise to 1,400. "This is based on estimates from our search teams," said a spokeswoman, Imogen Wall.

One local TV station, SCTV, reported that a teenage girl called Melani trapped under a collapsed building in Gunung Sitoli had sent a text message to her parents yesterday afternoon. "But they haven't heard anything since," a relative called Christie told SCTV. "Perhaps she's running out of oxygen, is weak from lack of food or her [phone] battery has died. We will not give up hope, however."

Large ships bringing emergency supplies began unloading in Gunung Sitoli yesterday. Some were due to go on to other ports along the ravaged east coast of Nias, while aid agencies said ships were also heading to other devastated islands, particularly Simeulue and the Banyak chain.

The aid included 300 tonnes of food delivered by the UN world food programme and 120 tonnes from the International Organisation of Migration. A relief flight organised by Oxfam International full of mostly specialist equipment to deliver clean water was to leave Britain for Sumatra last night. Many people have had to drink rainwater owing to the lack of other clean water.

Little of the assistance appears to have reached the tens of thousands of people camped out under tarpaulins or crammed into the few buildings that are still safe enough to inhabit, according to people in Gunung Sitoli.

"We have seen trucks go by full of food and other things but none of it has been given to us," said Raphael Sarminda, squatting under a leaking plastic sheet on the town's outskirts. "We don't know where it's going or what the government is doing with it."

Local officials admit their response to the disaster has been slow but are blaming prolonged bad weather and damaged infrastructure. The island's administrator, Bina hati Baeha, said people would not have to wait much longer.

"Food, water and other supplies are now arriving," he told the Guardian. "It is just that the availability is such that we can't distribute aid to everyone at once."

Many aid workers are starting to fan out across the island since the most basic needs have been met in the main town. Their progress is being hampered by badly damaged roads: most places in the interior are accessible only by motorbike.

Aftershocks are continuing to be felt every day and Ms Wall said experts believed it would only be a matter of time before another big quake.

"We're aware from our seismologists' reports that this is going to happen again on this scale," she said. "We're looking for places to position suitable stockpiles for the next one."