The rumble of C-130 cargo planes over the ancient Indonesian city of Yogyakarta Monday marked the slow but increasing flow of emergency aid to survivors of Saturday's quake.

The scale of the relief effort needed is still coming into focus. The magnitude 6.3 temblor that rocked the island of Java has left more than 5,000 dead and at least 150,000 people homeless, according to UN and Indonesian official estimates.

Food, medicine, and tents began arriving after the quake-damaged airport reopened to aid flights on Sunday. The International Red Cross, for example, says it has already sent a field hospital and 2,000 tents, with 8,000 more on the way. But as of Monday, most of the aid had yet to be distributed beyond the capital here.

Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who spent Saturday night sleeping in a tent with quake surivivors, said relief efforts reflected a "lack of coordination."

"There is a lack of clothes, food, of everything. We need help," says Sugiharto, who lives in Bantul, the worst-hit area south of Yogyakarta. Sugiharto's two sons were trapped in the rubble for 30 minutes before he was able to pull them out. Like many of the thousands injured in the quake, one of Sugiharto's sons had two broken legs.

Some 80 percent of the homes in Bantul were destroyed. The Indonesian government estimates as many as 35,000 homes and buildings on the island of Java were reduced to rubble.

In Sugiharto's tiny village, some 25 survivors - ranging in age from 1 to 80 - sat under blue tarps staring out at a relentless rain that has fallen each night since the quake.

The aid that did arrive on Monday inched along rubble-choked roads. Residents, some who said they lost their entire families, gathered into isolated encampments following the temblor. But most stayed put, saying they prefer the familiarity of their devastated villages to low-lying camps scattered nearby.

As with the December 2004 tsunami that devastated villages in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, many of the first groups to provide help to the Java quake survivors were nongovernmental organizations.

Food distribution has fallen to private citizens who have been driving their SUVs into the rice paddy fields handing out eggs, cookies, cooking oil, and rice. One government truck drove by announcing the location of a food pickup point, say residents, but no food was found at the site.

Islamic political groups are stepping in to help, already establishing camps housing as many as 600 people.

Monday, rescue workers and some distraught relatives continued to search collapsed buildings, even as aftershocks continued through the weekend.

In Yogyakarta, boxes stenciled with "Japanese Disaster Response Team" arrived in hotel lobbies and the distinctive white UN vehicles began to ply the roads. Although inadequate for the scale of this disaster, some international and Indonesia aid was already here prior to Saturday's quake to support villagers evacuating from the sides of Mt. Merapi, a nearby volcano threatening to erupt.

For example, Oxfam, with a branch in Yogyakarta, has already distributed 600 tents, 1,600 tarpaulins, and 6,000 hygiene kits. The World Food Program is sending 200 tons of food.

Since Saturday, more than a dozen national governments have pledged assistance. The US has committed $2.5 million in aid and is sending 100 doctors, nurses, and medical technicians from a base in Okinawa, Japan. Britain has pledged $5.6 million to be channeled through UN relief efforts. The European Union pledged $3.8 million, China is sending $2 million, and Japan almost $1 million plus medical teams.

International aid agencies met in Geneva Monday to coordinate relief and brief donor nations on the specific kinds of help needed.

Yet residents in the ruins of some isolated villages said they had not yet seen a government or aid worker.

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