The death toll from the twin disaster on Sulawesi island that erased whole suburbs in Palu has reached 1,944, said local military spokesman M. Thohir.

"That number is expected to rise because we have not received orders to halt the search for bodies," Thohir, who is also a member of the government's official Palu quake taskforce, told AFP on Monday.

Authorities have said as many as 5,000 are believed missing in two hard-hit areas since the September 28 disaster - indicating far more may have perished than the current toll.

Hopes of finding anyone alive have faded and the search for survivors amid the wreckage has turned to gathering and accounting for the dead.

The disaster agency said the official search for the unaccounted would continue until October 11 at which point they would be listed as missing, presumed dead.

The government has said it will declare those communities flattened in Palu as mass graves and leave them untouched.

Excavators and rescuers combed Balaroa on Monday, where a massive government housing complex was all but swallowed up by the disaster.

Rescuers have struggled to extract decomposing bodies from the tangled mess left behind.

Officials say as many as 5,000 people were feared buried at Balaroa and Petobo, another decimated community.

eNCA/AFP