The death toll from the earthquake rose to 131 on Wednesday and will climb higher, while the number of severely injured jumped from 239 to 1477.

An estimated 458 schools and 42,239 houses are uninhabitable.

Nearly three days after the quake hit, and as aftershocks continued to be felt across the island, Fairfax Media travelled to within a handful of kilometres of the earthquake’s epicentre.

In towns like Sembalun Bumbung and Bayan, which sit in the shadow of the Mount Rinjani volcano, basic food, water, and clothing aid has only just begun to arrive.

Roads between villages such Kayangan and Gangga in the far north of the island were cracked wide open – in some places by more than a foot – bridges have suffered extensive damage, huge trees have been ripped out of the ground and evidence of landslides was frequent.

In village after village in the north of the island, houses lie in ruins, crushed by their roofs and abandoned by their walls.

Aid agencies including Oxfam, the Red Cross and Save the Children, working with local partner agencies, say they are scrambling to get sufficient aid to those most in need.

Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said on Wednesday more than 156,003 refugees had been created by the earthquake, a day after admitting assistance had not reached all because of road closures, and markets and shops standing empty.

“We still very much need food for adults and for children, [including] blankets, tents, drugs and water.”

The Australian government is one of several countries to have offered assistance to Indonesia, but Mr Sotopo said Indonesia “does not need international assistance at the moment”.

Mr Sotopo also reminded NGOs in Lombok that they “must remain in hotel and cannot do humanitarian aid” – though this did not apply to NGOs with local partners or offices.

A spokesman for Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) Arifin Hadi said Australia, through the department of Foreign Affairs and the Australian Red Cross, had promised $150,000, China’s embassy had donated $US100,000, USAID had given $US60,000 and the International Red Cross 211,000 Swiss francs.

“To get an international assistance coming from out of Indonesia especially in the form of goods and personnel, the procedure is first to get confirmation from central government that this is a national-scale disaster and not a provincial one,” he said.

Save the Children and its local partner Yayasan Sayangi Tunas Cilik flagged grave concerns for the thousands of people living in makeshift shelters in remote villages.

The organisation's Silverius Tasman said it and the Indonesian Government were “doing all we can to help these people, but we do need more support to allow us to reach these most affected populations”.

Oxfam’s local project manager in Lombok, Meili Narti, said there needed to better coordination of aid efforts between the government and the military.

“Right now it is almost three days, and still we are getting information that a lot of areas get no help yet, so I think we should all work harder to reach these people by the end of the week.”

In Sembalun Bumbung, village elder Hasbi Haer took a break from tearing down what was left of his house to tell Fairfax Media that it could be at least six months before he and his family could move out of their tents.

“The government did give us aid, rice, noodles, and tarpaulin after the first quake [on July 29, which was magnitude 6.4], but it wasn't enough, there were too many of us,” he said.

No aid had arrived after the more severe earthquake on Sunday night, he said, because of difficulty accessing the remote location.

“President Jokowi promised that government will assist with 50 million rupiah [about $4600] for each house flattened, but we don't know when that will be. We are now just thinking of surviving.”

“We will tear down our houses, they are too damaged to fix, we will rebuild with plywood and timber, it is safer, cheaper and warmer."

His father, 90-something-year-old Hajji Kurniadi, said that an eruption by Mount Rinjani decades ago was “the big one”. But damage from Sunday’s earthquake to the village was actually worse.

His nephew, Ahmad "Adi" Munadi, 25, said he could no longer work at his coffee shop and his house, too, was now uninhabitable.

Instead, Adi was now helping other family members cope with the aftermath of the disaster.