An aftershock sent hundreds scrambling for high ground yesterday in fear of more giant waves, as rescuers pulled bodies from the debris and aid trickled into this Indonesian town two days after a tsunami.

While the death toll jumped to 550, a search continued for 273 people still missing after huge waves smashed into a 300-km (186 mile) stretch of coast along southern Java on Monday. A light aftershock that shook Pangandaran beach sent some people running, while others crowded onto motorcycles or into cars and headed inland, as rumours circulated of a fresh tsunami.

The false alarm came after thousands spent the night on mosque floors or under makeshift shelters.

Indonesian media questioned why there was no warning ahead of Monday’s killer waves despite regional efforts to set up early alert systems after the massive Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. The Jakarta Post said in an editorial the country’s National Disaster Management Coordination Board had done “nothing of note to increase people’s preparedness for disasters”. “Preparedness also covers efforts to build effective early warning systems based on sophisticated information and communication technologies,” the daily said. Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla told reporters the government would build an early warning system in Java and other areas in Indonesia in three years.

<B>Missing fishermen</B>

Along the coastline heavy equipment was deployed to help in the search for bodies under the rubble left when the waves rolled in after a 7.7-magnitude undersea earthquake.

Five bodies were found on beaches in the Pangandaran area alone early yesterday, Red Cross official Mehmet Selamat said. Asked whether more were likely to be recovered, he said: “I think so. There are many fishermen missing.”

More than a dozen corpses in yellow body bags lay in a makeshift morgue near the devastated Pangandaran beach, a popular tourist spot known for its black-sand shore and barbeque seafood. A man wailed as he held the arm of a dead woman.

Officals said four foreigners, including a Dutch national, a Swede, a Japanese and a Belgian, were known killed in the quake. “I saw a house coming towards me, but I couldn’t run. It stopped 20 metres from me,” Anne-Marie Kingmans, a Dutch tourist who survived, told Reuters. “We heard no warning. People just came running,” she said, adding that the waves washed a boat into the lobby of her hotel.

Government officials said as many as 54,000 people were displaced from wrecked fishing villages, farms and beach resorts, adding to the rehabilitation headache for authorities after an earthquake that killed more than 5,700 people in central Java less than two months earlier.

Aid trucks started to arrive for the thousands who lost their homes or who, fearing further tsunamis, had fled to hills above the coast.