The death toll from the Indonesian earthquake has reached 4,611, the country's social affairs department said today.
The 6.3 magnitude quake struck at dawn yesterday, devastating the Bantul area near the ancient royal city of Yogyakarta, about 440km east of the Indonesian capital Jakarta.
Rescue workers dug desperately for survivors today as residents returned to ruined homes on Indonesia's densely populated island of Java.
Up to 20,000 had been injured and more than 100,000 have been left homeless, Unicef spokesman John Budd said, but he said figures were still sketchy.
"Nobody really knows for sure simply because a lot of people were actually evacuated out ... in order to be treated and a lot of people who are injured have been turned away," Mr Budd said.
Trucks full of volunteers from Indonesian political parties and Islamic groups, as well as military vehicles carrying soldiers, headed south from the ancient royal city of Yogyakarta to Bantul, hardest hit by the quake, to help in the effort.
Medical supplies and body bags had begun arriving at the airport of Yogyakarta, about 25 km north of the Indian Ocean coast where Saturday's 6.3 magnitude quake, upgraded from an earlier 6.2, was centred just offshore.
The airport was closed to commercial flights after the terminal collapsed. A vulcanologist said the quake had heightened volcanic activity at nearby Mount Merapi, a volcano experts believe may be about to erupt.
Merapi has been rumbling for weeks and sporadically emitting hot lava and highly toxic hot gas. The official death toll stood at 3,295 by early afternoon today, said the Social Affairs Ministry's disaster task force, but Budd said he had received a government figure of 3,459. That number was expected to rise as more bodies were uncovered.
Yesterday's dawn quake struck while many were still in bed. Many houses in the area were poorly constructed, with wooden roofs that fell on occupants when the quake shook them.
It was the third major tremor to devastate Indonesia in 18 months, the worst being the quake on December 26th, 2004, and its resulting tsunami which left some 170,000 people dead or missing around Aceh.