Wednesday, December 29 2004 11:36 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Banda Aceh (Indonesia): The Military was preparing to dig mass graves today (Dec 29, 2004) on Indonesia's battered Sumatra Island, where the official death toll from an earthquake and Tsunamis jumped to more than 27,000, as Naval ships packed with food and medicine headed to remote areas.

Food shortages and disease posed looming threats in the capital of Aceh province on Sumatra's northern tip, even as Government officials expressed concerns that aid was not reaching the quake-devastated city of Banda Aceh fast enough.

The Health Ministry said in a statement that 27,178 people have been killed on the Island, but that figure did not include data from districts on the west coast, including the town of Meulaboh.

Purnomo Sidik, National Disaster Director at the Social Affairs Ministry, said yesterday (Dec 28, 2004) that emergency workers who reached Meulaboh reported 10,000 dead. There was no immediate explanation why the Health Ministry did not count the figure given by Sidik.

Bulldozers stood ready to bury the thousands of dead bodies that littered the streets and lined the front lawns of Government offices in Banda Aceh. With the threat of disease on the rise and very few ways to identify the dead, officials said they had no choice to but start burying them in mass graves, said Military Col Ahmad Yani Basuki.

"We will start digging the mass graves today,'' he said.