A TRICKLE of emergency aid is only now reaching parts of Sulawesi island, five days after the destructive earthquake that killed more than 1400 people, and some increasingly desperate survivors are taking matters into their own hands.

“We came here because we heard there was food,” said Rehanna, a 23-year-old student, wearing a red motorcycle helmet.

“We need clean water, rice.”

Elsewhere in the hard-hit city of Palu, residents clapped and cheered as they swarmed a truck that was finally delivering aid.

“I’m so happy,” said Heruwanto, clutching a box of instant noodles.

The 63-year-old man, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name, added: “I really haven’t eaten for three days.”

Meanwhile, Australia’s first big aid delivery to Indonesia is expected to arrive late this afternoon.

Tarpaulins, tools to build shelter, as well as hygiene and birthing kits, will be flown over on a Royal Australian Air Force C-130 Hercules, Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne said this afternoon.

“With over 70,000 people displaced by the tsunami, these supplies will provide critical relief,” she said.

“Australia will deliver more supplies in the coming days.”

Indonesian authorities have been struggling to get relief to survivors who have been left without food, water, fuel and medicine after Friday’s magnitude-7.5 quake and tsunami that smashed homes and businesses, downed communications and made roads impassable on Sulawesi.

Soldiers have been ordered to fire on those raiding stores on Sulawesi, after desperate survivors emptied shops of food and water.

“If there is looting again, we will quickly fire a warning shot and then shoot to immobilise,” said military colonel Ida Dewa Agung Hadisaputra.

The official death toll rose to 1407 on Wednesday, with thousands injured and more than 70,000 displaced, said national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.

He said the number of dead would increase, but that rescue crews had reached all affected areas.

In yet another reminder of Indonesia’s vulnerability to natural disasters, the Soputan Volcano in Sulawesi erupted on Wednesday, spewing volcanic ash up to 4000 metres above the crater.

Indonesia sits along the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, the world’s most tectonically active region, and its 260 million people remain hugely vulnerable to earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.

Meanwhile, authorities have set a tentative deadline of Friday to find anyone still trapped under rubble, at which point — a week after this devastating double disaster — the chances of finding survivors will dwindle to almost zero.

Government rescue workers seeking survivors are focusing on half a dozen key sites around the seaside city of Palu — the Hotel Roa-Roa where up to 60 people are still believed buried, a shopping mall, a restaurant and the Balaroa area where the sheer force of the quake turned the earth temporarily to mush.

At a minimum, 150 people are unaccounted for beneath the rubble, officials said.

According to the UN’s humanitarian office almost 200,000 people need urgent help, among them tens of thousands of children, with an estimated 66,000 homes destroyed or damaged by the 7.5-magnitude quake and the tsunami it spawned.

Despite the Indonesian government having earlier urged foreign rescue teams to “stand down” because the crisis was in hand, residents in hard-hit, remote villages like Wani in Donggala province say little help has arrived and hope is fading.

“Twelve people in this area haven’t yet been found,” Mohammad Thahir Talib told AFP.

“In the area to the south, because there hasn’t been an evacuation we don’t know if there are bodies. It’s possible there are more,” the 39-year-old said.

In Geneva, the United Nations expressed frustration at the slow pace of the response.

“There are still large areas of what might be the worst-affected areas that haven’t been properly reached, but the teams are pushing, they are doing what they can,” Jens Laerke, from the UN’s humanitarian office, told reporters late on Tuesday.

The World Health Organisation has estimated that across Donggala, some 310,000 people have been affected by the disaster.

Survivors are battling thirst and hunger, with food and clean water in short supply, and local hospitals are overwhelmed by the number of injured.

Officials on the ground said that while the government had now invited offers of help, there is still no “mechanism for this to be implemented”.

Six of the Indonesian social affairs ministry’s trucks laden with supplies were reportedly looted en route to Palu and on one route out of the city. An AFP journalist reported that youths blocking the road and asking for “donations”.

On the outskirts of the city, hundreds of people sifted through the ruins of a collapsed factory, salvaging food, drinks and construction materials.

Indonesia President Joko Widodo, who faces re-election next year, insisted the military and the police were in full control.

“There is no such thing as looting,” he said on a visit to Palu.

BODY BAG SHORTAGE, NO TOILETS
As survivors pick through the shattered remains of their neighbourhoods, the death toll continues to rise.

The Indonesia-based ASEAN co-ordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance said that more body bags were “urgently” needed as fears grow that decomposing corpses could provide a breeding ground for deadly diseases.

Rescue efforts have been hampered by a lack of heavy machinery, severed transport links and the scale of the damage.

With power returning to parts of Palu late on Tuesday, phone networks back up and running and even some markets opening for business, there were the faintest signs of things getting back to normal.

But for most, daily life has changed beyond all recognition.

Palu residents crowded around daisy-chained power strips at the few buildings with electricity, or queued for water, cash or petrol being brought in via armed police convoy.

Queues to get a few litres of petrol lasted more than 24 hours in some places.

Sanitation is also a growing problem.

“People everywhere want to go to the toilet but there’s no toilet. So we do it along the road at night,” said 50-year-old Armawati Yarmin.