Fresh international earthquake aid flowed into Indonesia on Tuesday as schools and shops re-opened amid the stench of death from bodies still trapped beneath the rubble.

At the crumpled Ambacang Hotel in the city centre, excavators briefly ceased digging when workers thought they heard a woman's cries for help, but a search revealed no further signs of life.

"There's no one alive. I stopped all the machinery to ensure that the family of the victims were satisfied," the commander of the clean-up operation, Haris Sarjana, told AFP.

Another 10 bodies were pulled from wreckage around Padang, including six from the Ambacang, provincial disaster management operation head Ade Edward said.

"We've also started to spray disinfectant to get rid of the stench and are clearing up the debris using heavy machinery," he added.

Hundreds remain buried

In the rugged hills to the east and north of the city, hundreds of people remained buried beneath massive landslides that swallowed villages when the 7.6-magnitude quake struck off the coast of western Sumatra last Wednesday.

A Red Cross official said the final death toll would exceed 3000, although the national Disaster Management Agency put the latest toll at 704, with 295 missing.

Between 170 000 and 200 000 homes were damaged, with about half this number completely destroyed, said Bob McKerrow, the head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Indonesia.

Helicopters dropped vital supplies to cut-off farming communities which relief workers could not reach by road.

More choppers were on their way aboard US Navy ships in a multimillion-dollar effort to aid victims of the earthquake, State Department spokesperson Ian Kelly said in Washington.

About 45 metric tonnes (50 tons) of relief goods from US Agency for International Development stockpiles were due to arrive in Padang on Tuesday.

"This includes plastic sheeting, hygiene kits, generators and this will all be distributed via the Red Cross," Kelly told reporters.

US sends surgical team

Meanwhile, a US Navy field hospital that will treat up to 400 people a day was opened in Padang and would start treating patients on Wednesday, a US official said.

The United States is also sending a seven-person mobile field surgical team and two warships with helicopters that will fly to the hardest-hit rural areas.

Australia has sent military engineers and medics on the ground, and two C-130 aircraft transporting personnel, equipment and stores between Jakarta and Padang, the Australian embassy said.

Most foreign search and rescue teams are leaving the country, with almost no hope any more survivors will be found beneath the debris seven days after the quake.

As the aid effort shifted gear, the city began to show signs of recovery.

"Sixty percent of markets have reopened, the schools have all reopened, people have gone back to work and fishermen have gone back to sea," Padang Mayor Fauzi Bahar told AFP.

The UN children's agency Unicef said almost 70 000 children, or about 40 percent of the city's students, were back in class on Tuesday.

"This is an important sign that life will return to normal for children affected by this tragedy," Unicef country representative Angela Kearney said.

The government has pledged six trillion rupiah ($624-million) for reconstruction efforts in Sumatra, but many fear the money will be lost to corruption as it flows through the local government.

"It gets thinner and thinner and then just a mouse's tail comes out the bottom. That's Indonesia," housewife Edib Mulyati told AFP in the village of Bunga Pasang on the outskirts of Padang.

AFP

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