GUNUNGSITOLI, Indonesia, April 2, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – With relief workers racing time to help thousands of homeless and hungry Indonesians, a man dug out from under the rubble gave some rare cheer to residents of tremors-devastated islanders.

“People (aid workers) are moving out of town for the first time in a serious way today,” Oxfam official Alex Renton told Reuters Saturday, April 2.

“Outside town, things are still very unclear.”

Volunteers are trying to reach thousands of people cut off from aid in the area off Sumatra island near Aceh province.

Renton estimated only about 10 percent of the 5,600 sq km (2,100 sq mile) island had been assessed by aid agencies.

“The issue is that because of lack of road infrastructure and the lack of ... helicopter support, we are not really sure what is happening in the outlying areas,” George McGuire, an Australian navy commander, told reporters.

A massive quake, measuring 8.7 on the Richter scale, struck several Indonesian islands late Monday, March 28.

The UN has said that 1,300 people may have died in the main town of Gunungsitoli alone, and there are concerns the death toll could rise as they reach isolated parts of the island that have been cut off by landslides and damage to roads.

The quake struck just three months after a 9.3-strong undersea quake in the same region produced tsunamis that killed around 270,000 people across the Indian Ocean, the vast majority of them in Indonesia.

Hendra was pulled out alive after being trapped for five days in the rubble of his three-storey house. (Reuters)

Reuters correspondents who rode by motorbike from Gunungsitoli along the road to Teluk Dalam town some 120 km (75 miles) south on Friday, April 1, saw widespread damage to houses, bridges and roads and little sign of aid reaching people.

Thousands of people are facing food and water shortages because the quake destroyed water mains and markets.

“There is no problem with the amount of food. The problem lies with the distribution,” Vice President Jusuf Kalla told reporters after meeting local officials on Nias.

He said the government was sending more ships and helicopters from the mainland and would try to restore the water supply within a week.

Heavy rains over the past two days have hampered relief and rescue efforts, but increasing numbers of aid workers and supplies have begun to reach Nias.

An Australian navy ship carrying 60 medical personnel docked in Nias on Saturday morning to help treat hundreds of people injured in Monday's quake.

In a sign that some roads could reopen soon to vehicles, late on Friday an earthmoving machine was shifting dirt into large cracks near bridges not far from Gunungsitoli, although it was unclear if it would be safe for cars and trucks to use.

On Friday, foreign doctors and medical staff treated the injured in Teluk Dalam in a makeshift hospital set up on verandah of church overlooking what would normally be the picturesque town of some 10,000 people.

Several aftershocks during the night added to residents' misery.

“A lot of people are not sleeping well. They are fearful of another earthquake or tsunami,” said Brad Quist, 45, an American doctor from Michigan.

Giving islanders some rare cheer, Singaporean and Mexican rescue workers on Saturday pulled out alive an Indonesian man trapped for five days in the rubble of his three-storey shop house.

They freed the man after digging down to him through chunks of concrete and other debris in a tense operation lasting about seven hours.

Hendra Ho Keng, 42, was placed on a stretcher and taken to hospital. His two daughters and wife were presumed to have been killed.

“I think my daughter was crushed by a concrete slab,” he told reporters from his hospital bed. “I was behind and everything collapsed.”

Soldiers had heard a voice calling for help from the rubble in the morning and alerted the foreign rescue teams, who managed to get food and water to Hendra while digging down.

Around 1,500 Indonesian soldiers have been digging through the rubble of houses destroyed in the magnitude 8.7 quake on Monday night.

But rescuers who pulled several survivors from buildings earlier this week had said there was little hope of finding anyone else alive.