Banda Aceh – Indonesia has buried more than 100,000 tsunami victims, mostly in mass graves, a month after the disaster, the government said on Thursday.

Trucks manned by Indonesian soldiers and volunteers dumping bloated and rotting corpses into lime-coated pits have become a common sight around Aceh province on the northern island of Sumatra, which bore the brunt of the deaths.

With nearly 130,000 people still missing, and more than 1,000 bodies recovered daily from the mud and rubble on the northern tip of Sumatra island, the task could continue for weeks.

"The total number of bodies buried is 101,199. The number of missing is 127,749," said a statement from the tsunami crisis center in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh.

Indonesia's health ministry said on Tuesday nearly 230,000 people were dead or missing as a result of the December 26 earthquake and tsunami that devastated northern Sumatra. Previously it had given a figure if some 173,000 dead, which included tens of thousands of missing.

The tsunami has left nearly 300,000 dead or missing around the Indian Ocean from Somalia to Thailand.