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Aid pours in after quake

Humanitarian organizations descended on Indonesia's Aceh province Thursday as the government in Jakarta promised tons of emergency aid and officials raced to assess the full extent of damage from an earthquake that killed more than 100 people.

Search efforts involving volunteers and nearly 1,500 rescue personnel were concentrated on the hard-hit town of Meureudu in Pidie Jaya district near the epicenter of the magnitude 6.5 quake that hit before dawn Wednesday. Humanitarian assessment teams were fanning out to other areas of the district.

National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the death toll had risen to 102 and warned it could increase. Search teams were using devices that detect mobile phone signals with a 100-meter (yard) radius to help guide their efforts, he said. Aceh's disaster mitigation agency said more than 600 people were injured.

Thousands are people are homeless or afraid to return to their homes. Aceh officials said more than 8,000 people spent Wednesday night in shelters in Pidie Jaya district alone.

Killer quakes occur regularly in the region, where many live with the terrifying memory of a giant Dec. 26, 2004, earthquake that struck off Sumatra. The magnitude 9.1 quake triggered a devastating tsunami that killed more than 100,000 Acehnese.

The Indonesian government said its urgent aid would be flown out of Jakarta early Thursday afternoon and will include 10 generators, tents, folding beds, baby supplies and body bags. The Red Cross deployed aid such as water trucks on Wednesday and humanitarian group CARE said it is leading an assessment team of four different international aid groups to avoid duplication of efforts.

"Every aid and civil society organization is piling into the area with as many boxes of rice, instant noodles, blankets and other aid as they can shift," said Paul Dillon, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, which has an assessment team in northern Aceh.

It will take at least two more days before there's a fuller picture of how many people are displaced and the relief effort required, he said.



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