Rescue workers in Indonesia stepped up their search for victims of an earthquake and tsu-

nami yesterday, hoping to find as many bodies as they can before this week's deadline for their

work to half as the official death toll rose to 2,010.

The national disaster mitigation agency has called off the search from Thursday, citing concern about the spread of disease. Debris would be cleared and areas where

bodies lie would eventu-

ally be turned into parks, sports venues and memorials.

Perhaps as many as 5,000 victims of the 7.5 magnitude quake and tsunami on September 28 have yet to be found, most of them entombed in flows of mud flows that surged from the ground when the quake agitated the soil into a liquid mire.Most of the bodies have been found in

the seaside city of Palu, on the west coast of Sulawesi island, 1,500 km (930 miles) northeast of the capital, Jakarta.

More than 10,000 rescue workers are scouring expanses of debris, especially in

three areas obliterated by soil liquefaction in the south of the small city.

"We’re not sure what will happen afterwards, so we're trying to work as fast as possibly" said rescue worker Ahmad Amin, 29, referring to the deadline, as

he took a break in the badly

hit Balaroa neighbourhood. While Indonesian workers searched, the disaster agency ordered independent foreign aid workers to leave the quake zone Indonesia has traditionally been reluctant to be seen as relying on outside help to cope with disasters, and the government shunned foreign aid this year when earthquakes struck the island of Lombok.