While search teams in Indonesia lost hope of finding anyone else alive under buildings that were brought down by a powerful earthquake, aid agencies have been struggling to provide supplies to those who survived the disaster.
On Sunday, rescue teams shifted focus to retrieve rotting bodies from the wreckage left by a magnitude 7.6 earthquake in Sumatra island. But the full effect of destruction remains unknown.
The Indonesian government said on Sunday that 603 people were confirmed dead and 960 were missing. However, some experts have said that number could double. The United Nations said 1,100 people died in the quake.
"We still don't have a clear picture of the extent of this damage," Amelia Merrick, operations director with World Vision, told Â鶹´«Ã½ Channel from Padang, Indonesia. "Most of us fear that there are over 3,000 missing people."
Torrential rains slowed delivery of aid to survivors in the remote hills of the country's western region, where several villages were destroyed.
"It's really critical that we get relief to communities as soon as possible," Merrick said. "Our distribution efforts have been hampered because of communications, phone lines still aren't working, the roads, there's traffic today that slowed down our convoys."
In many of the rural areas her organization visited, 50 to 80 per cent of the homes had collapsed, she said.
Meanwhile Jusuf Kalla, Indonesia's vice-president, told reporters there was little hope of finding anyone else alive under the rubble.
"We can be sure that they are dead. So now we are waiting for burials," he said.
More than 600 people were believed to have been buried alive in four villages in the Padang Pariaman district, as landslides caused by the quake swept through the area. As many as 300 of those victims were guests at a single wedding party, in the village of Jumanak.
"With each passing day, the magnitude of the devastation grows," said Mark Fritzler, head of Save the Children's Indonesia branch.
"In addition to the threat of aftershocks, heavy rainfall has challenged our efforts, roads are cut off and we have no power in many areas, but relief workers are reaching families in the hardest hit areas," he said.
Aid workers and military troops reached the four devastated villages on Sunday. They brought heavy equipment to help villagers dig for rotting corpses.
Later in the day heavy rains began, and local authorities ordered those in the area to leave, for fear of recurring landslides.
In Padang, about 200 people were reported to have died when the earthquake collapsed Ambacang Hotel. Search teams have recovered 29 bodies at the site, and no survivors.
The National Disaster Management Agency said 83,712 houses, 200 public buildings and 285 schools were destroyed. About 100,000 other buildings were badly damaged.
Water supplies were also affected by the earthquake and the price of water has doubled, according to a statement from Oxfam.
With files from The Associated Press
