One of the few survivors after a major earthquake dislodged hillsides around four adjacent villages on Sumatra island a week ago, the 62-year-old has been called upon to identify the bodies being plucked one-by-one from the earth.

But he has had enough.

"I'm too traumatised, I can't do it anymore," Muchtar, a weather-beaten rice farmer, told AFP, his voice halting as he spoke.

"The families keep asking me, but I can't help. I'm too scared," he said, adding that only five people out of one extended family of 21 had survived.

Police in the village believe around 100 people there perished in the disaster triggered by last Wednesday's 7.6-magnitude earthquake.

In all the villages in this area, some 30 kilometres (19 miles) east of the town of Pariaman, up to 400 are believed to have died, according to local officials.

The actual number is likely to never be known.

Anyone caught in the tonnes of rock, mud and trees had little chance. When rescue workers arrived days later, they could only help to dig for bodies.

A child's bicycle, a sewing machine, pillows and a bib -- these are the only signs that a thriving rural community existed here just a week ago.

And the bodies, which are being unearthed at the rate of a handful a day.

As time passes they are becoming increasingly difficult to identify, police officer Lukman Sardi said.

"Before we bury them, we automatically ask the local people here. We ask them whose body this might be, if there isn't any family," he said.

Most of the dead are waiting for someone to claim them. If no one does, a mass grave has been prepared with four nameless bodies already in place.

Kota Furukawa, a sniffer dog handler from the Japan Rescue Association, said he was unsure that all the bodies would be retrieved.

"I think it'll take months," he said, shaking his head.

Behind a cordon manned by soldiers, sightseers from nearby towns had begun to gather, parking their motorcycles and snapping pictures with their mobile phone cameras.

On a wall is a list put up by authorities of the names of 103 seven- to 11-year-olds of the local elementary school. It showed 30 dead, 54 alive and the remainder missing.

In nearby Kepala Koto village, which was also wiped out in the landslide, 35-year-old farmer Mzan said the catastrophe was "like doomsday".

"About 76 people from my village died after being buried under the rubble," he said.

Surviving villagers were too afraid of further landslides to return.

"We hope the government will find a new place to house our village. We are not coming back," he said.

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