Simmering Mount Merapi was put on red alert on May 13 and looms over a plain already devastated by the quake which hit two weeks later, killing nearly 5,800 people and leaving 340,000 people homeless.

Vulcanologists have recorded escalating activity at the volcano, resulting in thousands of people being evacuated from hamlets near its peak this week. Some 22,000 were taken to safety last month but most had returned home by the time the quake hit.

Bo Asplund, the UN's humanitarian coordinator in Indonesia, said that aid was flowing to the quake victims and that needs would soon shift towards finding housing for those whose homes were flattened.

"From what I've seen in the field, the relief operation is certainly in full swing, I think the logistics' bottlenecks are being overcome," Asplund said in Yogyakarta, the main city in the quake zone.

"I do not think there are still any villages that have not been reached, which was the case for a few days after the earthquake."

He said no more field hospitals were required but there was a continuing need for medical supplies and specialist medical care.

"In this disaster, given that it struck a part of Indonesia that is well organised and has a strong government, I think we will get to the recovery phase sooner and more quickly than if it had struck a different area," he said.

Indonesian health authorities with help from the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) are to begin vaccinating more than 130,000 under-five children in the zone on Wednesday, a UNICEF statement said.

The agency warned that conditions in the zone could lead to a more rapid transmission of the measles virus and result in a more severe clinical illness.

The UN food agency told AFP that the agriculture sector in the worst-affected area of Bantul had been devastated and more than half its farmers lacked money to plant rice this month.

Ted Burke from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said the farmers and their families, numbering about 250,000 people, would struggle to get back to farming immediately.

"There is definitely a need for us to help the farmers because their lives have been so disrupted that there is no way they are going to be able to get the capital to get back to normal farming right away," he told AFP.

Puji Pujiono, deputy area humanitarian coordinator for the United Nations, said the body was meanwhile paying closer attention to Merapi's threat as thousands of people were evacuated from its slopes amid increased activity.

"It's very appropriate that we take a closer look ... of what are we going to do if and should Merapi actually turn out to be showing or demonstrating further explosions," he said.

"We don't have what the worst scenario looks like but definitely it requires serious thought in an operation like this," he said.

Vulcanologists said that a natural ridge that had so far helped divert larger lava flows to uninhabited areas collapsed overnight, putting more people at risk.

Yogyakarta Governor, Sultan Hamengkubuwono X, visited several safe shelters, calling on the predominantly female evacuees to help persuade the men to remain alert if they refuse to join them.

"I ask that you, the women, persuade your men, your sons, to remain careful, and not be negligent," he said.

Rosaleen Cunningham from aid agency Save the Children told AFP that Merapi's threat was "an added complication" to recovery efforts.

"If the volcano does something unpredictable ... and the areas have not been evacuated, it's going to turn into a much more massive emergency response," she said.

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