Whole communities were swallowed by rampaging waters as they coursed along the coastline of Aceh, a remote and conflict-scarred region on the northern tip of Sumatra island.

In the tiny town of Paton Labu, close to Bireuen on Aceh's northern coast, Ali said a large area vanished from the shoreline as fearsome tidal forces sent 10-metre (33 foot) waves crashing inland.

More than 100 people were killed as Paton Labu's flimsy wooden houses disintegrated into the advancing ocean, while 200 more are missing, Ali said. Meanwhile, hundreds more homeless villagers, dressed in sarongs, milled anxiously on the waters' edge.

Officials say the killer tides and seismic shockwaves struck across northern Sumatra on Sunday, killing at least 4,448 people in a region which has lost thousands in recent years to a long-running separatist struggle.

Along Aceh's coastline, flimsy straw-roofed houses lay crushed or tossed aside while vehicles were scattered in rivers and ravines. Frightened farm animals wandered the quake-buckled roads, untethered in the chaos.

Fishing boats plied the debris-strewn waters searching for possible survivors.

In the provincial capital Banda Aceh, damaged communications meant the full horror of what occurred in the city closest to the epicentre of one of the largest quakes for decades was still unknown.

There were reports of collapsed buildings, flooded airport runways with officials at Indonesia's social affairs ministry speaking of unconfirmed reports of up to 5,000 dead in the city alone.

With bodies piling up across Aceh the region, in many areas of the deeply Islamic province, mosques were being used to collect the dead as hospital morgues spilled over, the ministry's Wawan Setiwan said.

Television pictures showed rows of dead infants swaddled in traditional cloths, lying on hospital floors as relatives wept outside. Adult corpses were shown being stacked into ambulances.

Indonesia is frequently hit by earthquakes as continental plates impact deep beneath the archipelago, but the magnitude of Sunday's natural disaster plunged the nation into grief.

Flags were ordered to half-mast as President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, en route to view the devastation and inspect relief efforts, declared three days of national mourning.

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