An aftershock sent hundreds scrambling for high ground on Wednesday 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 525, 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 rumors 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.

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 on Wednesday, 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.

Officials 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 toward me, but I couldn't run. It stopped 20 meters 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.

Many found refuge under plastic-sheeting shelters they made themselves while thousands stayed inside mosques at Pangandaran and nearby Cilacap port, among the hardest-hit spots.

Soft-drink and snack seller Mukasih, 25, said the tsunami destroyed both her kiosk and her home.

"Suddenly the waves came in and knocked me over. I tried to swim but I couldn't," she told Reuters.

Mukasih suffered cuts and lacerations as the waves flung her and one of her children against a wall. She later found her husband and other child sheltering in a mosque.

Asked what her plans were, she said: "I don't know. I'm still thinking, but I don't want a shop on the beach again."

No tsunami warning system was set up for the southern coast of Java after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that left 230,000 killed or missing, including 170,000 in Indonesia.

Some officials considered the area, about 270 km (170 miles) southeast of Jakarta, less likely to be hit by a tsunami than others in Indonesia.

"It turned out that our prediction was wrong," the Jakarta Post quoted Surono, a senior official of the country's earthquake agency, as saying. "Now, we believe that there are no tsunami-free areas along the southern coast of Java."

Indonesia's 17,000 islands sprawl along a belt of intense volcanic and seismic activity, part of what is called the "Pacific Ring of Fire."

PHOTO CAPTION

A man cries next to the body of his son who was killed by a tsunami, in Pangandaran. (AFP)