BEIJING, May 30 -- Aid was trickling in yesterday for survivors of an earthquake that killed more than 5,000 people on Indonesia's Java island and left tens of thousands of homeless foraging for food and shelter.

    Vice President Jusuf Kalla said the government had declared a three-month emergency period in the quake zone and put relief and rebuilding costs at around 1 trillion rupiah (US$107 million) and said the government aimed to complete reconstruction within a year.

    Many survivors who were injured or whose homes were destroyed by the quake spent a rainy Sunday night in the open on the grounds of hospitals and mosques or in makeshift shelters beside the rubble of their houses.

    The 6.2-magnitude quake's official death toll reached 5,136. The tremor early Saturday was centered just off the Indian Ocean coast near Yogyakarta, the former Javanese royal capital.

    Government figures put the number of injured at 2,155, but the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said there were 20,000 injured and more than 130,000 homeless, of which 40 percent are children.

    Those who survived were meanwhile struggling to get by.

    In the hard-hit Bantul area of the island, Sutrisno, carrying his 13-month-old baby son, said his village had been reduced to rubble. He has been living in a tent since Saturday.

    Many who lost their homes lack even tents, and government and private aid agencies say shelter is a top aid priority, along with clean water.

    Yogyakarta's provincial secretary, Bambang Susanto Priyohadi, said the pace of aid needed to be stepped up.

    Priyohadi said evacuating the dead was another priority.

    Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari said doctors and medicines were being sent to affected areas to prevent outbreaks of diseases such as measles and malaria.

    Health and hygiene kits for tens of thousands of people as well as water supply carriages had reached the hardest-hit area of Bantul, John Budd, UNICEF spokesman in Jakarta, told Reuters.

    The World Food Program was distributing 30 tons of enriched biscuits, enough to feed 20,000 people for a week.

    (Source: Shenzhen Daily/ Agencies)