The quake was centred 60km southeast of the North Sumatra provincial capital, Medan, at a depth of 200km.
Indonesia was the nation worst hit by the earthquake-triggered Asian tsunami two years ago, with 168,000 people killed in Aceh province in the north of Sumatra.
A quake on the south coast of the main island of Java also killed more than 600 people in July.

Glen Rabonza, head of the civil defence office, said rescue workers were struggling to pull people from the debris. "Our rescue teams are overstretched rescuing people on rooftops," he said.

The president of the Philippines, Gloria Arroyo, ordered the country's military to help reach people in submerged villages. More than 100 people died and 130 were injured after mudslides struck several villages on the slopes of the Mayon volcano.

"The disaster covered almost every corner of this province - rampaging floods, falling trees, damaged houses," Fernando Gonzalez, governor of Albay province, the worst hit area, was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

"It happened very rapidly and many people did not expect this because they haven't experienced mud flows in those areas before. By the time they wanted to move, the rampaging mud flows were upon them."

Reports emerged of residents of Padang village having their clothes ripped off as they were carried away by muddy flows of volcanic ash.

"It's terrible," Noel Rosal, mayor of Legazpi city, Albay's capital, told AP. "Based on our interviews with residents and village officials, more than 100 people were killed or [went] missing. We now call this place a black desert."

The typhoon caused havoc with communications, and details of the extent of the damage remained sketchy. The storm is thought to have made about 11,000 people homeless, as well as knocking out power lines and phone links, and burying roads beneath landslides.

Local officials estimated that more than 22,000 people had been affected by the storm, which by last night was heading to towards the South China Sea and was expected to weaken to a tropical storm before striking Vietnam on Monday.

Durian, named after a pungent local fruit, made landfall yesterday in the island province of Catanduanes, where there are no mountains that could have limited the storm's impact.

The typhoon devastated the island of Marinduque, uprooting trees and ripping the roofs from many homes. "It's the worst in our history," a local congressman, Edmund Reyes, said in a radio interview. "Almost all houses were damaged by the typhoon in the province."

The widespread damage caused by the 20 typhoons and storms to hit the Philippines every year has been blamed on destruction of local forests. Last February landslides killed more than 1,000 residents of a village in Leyte province, and in 1991 more than 5,000 people died in the same region in floods triggered by a typhoon.

The vast majority of the estimated 36.3 million people living with HIV/Aids globally are in sub-Saharan Africa, already the most deprived region on the planet.

In a speech to mark World Aids Day, the UN's secretary general, Kofi Annan, said politicians and individuals must consider themselves personally accountable for stopping the spread of the disease.

"It requires every one of us to help bring Aids out of the shadows and spread the message that silence is death," he said.

Last year, more than 3 million people - 75% in sub-Saharan Africa - were unable to work because of illness due to Aids.

The economic slowdown has hit young people hardest, with unemployment up to three times higher than for adults.

Young people stuck in the poverty trap are also at higher risk of contracting the disease, accounting for half of all new HIV infections. An estimated 5,000 to 6,000 people aged between 15 and 24 acquire HIV every day.

The report also focuses on the damage the epidemic is having on children, forcing them into child labour and ultimately preventing them from being able to find productive jobs as adults.

Often children are forced to seek work early after their parents are left dead or incapacitated from the disease, robbing them of an education and putting them at greater risk of contracting the virus themselves.

A survey in Uganda in 2004showed 95 per cent of children in HIV-affected households had some kind of job - and 16per cent worked day and night.

Girls in particular risk being sexually abused and being infected at work, especially those working as prostitutes.

The ILO added studies had shown most men and women working in the sex industry began in their teens or early 20s.

"Mortality losses to the labour force, illness and lack of access to antiretroviral treatment (ARVs) are jeopardising the ability of the worst affected countries to lift themselves out of poverty," the report said.

The ILO argues that "forceful measures" were needed to increase access to ARVs - and said a key aim was making them available at work.

Without better treatment, the future looks bleak. By 2020, losses to the global labour force due to the epidemic are set to reach 86 million a year, compared to an estimated 28 million for 2005.

Better access to drugs could cut that figure by up to a quarter.

"The prospect of averting between one fifth and one quarter of potential new losses of the labour force should serve as a powerful incentive to target the workplace as a major entry point to achieve universal access to ARVs," the survey said.

Fernando Gonzales, governor of badly hit Albay province, said 108 bodies had been found but that recovery operations were continuing. The figure did not include at least one person killed in adjacent Camarines Sur province, which reported that its capital was flattened.

Under secretary Dr Graciano Yumul of the Department of Science and Technology said the storm was particularly damaging because wind gusts hit 165mph when Typhoon Durian came ashore yesterday in Catanduanes, an island province with no mountains to break the storm's momentum.

At least 20 bodies were recovered from the village of Padang, which was hit by a mudslide of volcanic debris on the foot of the Mayon volcano, said Noel Rosal, mayor of Legazpi city, Albay province's capital.

Rosal said about 30 people were injured by boulders and roofing materials in Padang and taken to hospitals.

"It's terrible," he said, after visiting the village today. "Based on our interviews with residents and village officials, more than 100 were killed or missing."

Rosal said some victims had their clothes torn off as they were swept away by the mudslide.

"We now call this place a black desert," he said, referring to the colour of the volcanic debris.

Mayon erupted in July, depositing millions of tons of rocks and volcanic ash on its slopes. Rains from succeeding typhoons that hit the area earlier may have loosened the materials.

Rosal said three of the five communities comprising the village of 1,400 people had been "wiped out" with only the roofs of several houses jutting out of the debris.

He said some boulders were as big as cars.

Rosal said Padang could be reached only by foot or motorcycle because a bridge linking it to Legazpi, about six miles away, was damaged.

He said the mudslide occurred as the city was lashed by Typhoon Durian. His own residence was under water that was "higher than a person" from a flashflood.

Jukes Nunez of the Albay Provincial Disaster Co-ordinating Council said many communities in Legazpi were still flooded today.

"The request for rescue is overwhelming. The disaster managers are victims themselves," he said.

The typhoon weakened today as it moved north of Mindoro island south of Manila with sustained winds of 94mph and gusts of up to 116mph as it headed towards the South China Sea.

Mr Steiner made his comments at the opening of a week-long conference in Nairobi which will review the Basel Convention, aimed at reducing the movement of all types of hazardous waste.

"The need for Basel is ever more evident in this globalised world," he said.

"Accelerating trade in goods and materials across borders and across continents is one of the defining features of the early 21st Century."

Toxic waste

E-waste is thought to be the fastest growing part of municipal waste in the developed world.

The decreasing cost of replacing computers, mobile phones and other electronic gadgets, and the speed with which technology goes out of date, mean there is more and more to be disposed of.

Traditionally, much of the waste found its way to Asian countries such as China and India, but tighter regulations means more and more is ending up in Africa.

A recent study by the Basel Action Network concludes that a minimum of 100,000 computers a month are entering the Nigerian port of Lagos alone.

"If these were good quality, second hand, pieces of equipment this would perhaps be a positive trade of importance for development," said Mr Steiner.

"But local experts estimate that between a quarter to 75% of these items including old TVs, CPUs and phones are defunct - in other words e-waste."

When these are burnt, a common disposal method, it can release toxic fumes and leach chemicals such as barium and mercury into the soil.

International force

The conference will discuss how to tighten regulations to prevent this kind of incident occurring.

In particular it will review amendments to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal which will tighten controls on shipments and disposal of e-waste.

"We need to shine a brighter light on hazardous wastes - where they come from and where they end up," said Basel Convention Executive Secretary Sachiko Kuwabara-Yamamoto.

The convention is meant to regulate waste in all of its forms, including e-waste. It came into force in 1992, and has since been signed by more than 160 countries.

Members of the convention in Nairobi will also press those countries that have not yet ratified the treaty, such as the US, to do so.

Also on the agenda will be a recent incident in Ivory Coast where noxious fumes produced by waste dumped around Abidjan killed at least 10 people and left more than 70,000 seeking medical treatment.

Although there is no indication that the incident was caused by e-waste, the UN says the incident is indicative of the challenge facing African nations.

"I sincerely hope that the tragedy in Cote D'Ivoire and the challenges of e-waste will serve as a wake up call to the Parties of the Basel Convention and other related treaties," said Mr Steiner.

"If the ice shelf goes, then what about the West Antarctic Ice Sheet? What we've learnt from the Antarctic Peninsula is when once buttressing ice sheets go, the glaciers feeding them move faster and that's the thing that isn't so cheery."

Antarctica comprises about 90 per cent of the world's ice mass, with the the West Antarctic Ice Sheet holding an estimated 30 million cubic kilometres.

In January, British Antarctic Survey researchers predicted that its collapse would make sea levels rise by at least 5m, with other estimates predicting a rise of up to 17m.

Naish, a sedimentologist with the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences, said the drilling team had banked on recovering about 30m of sediment core a day but was far exceeding that.

In one day this week the team, organised by Antarctica New Zealand, retrieved 83m, containing climate records spanning about 500,000 years.

"We're really getting everything we've dreamed of. What we're getting is a pretty detailed history of the ice shelf," he said.

"You go from full glacial conditions to open ocean conditions very abruptly. It doesn't surprise us that much that the transition was dramatic.

"We know from the Larsen Ice Shelf (which collapsed on the Antarctic Peninsula in 2002) that they go extremely quickly." The cores had to be sent from Antarctica to get a definitive date, but the indications were the team had reached sediments laid down about three million years ago.

"Once the date is more precise we'll be able to look at what the ice shelf was doing during periods when we know from other evidence that it was 2deg to 4deg warmer than today," Naish said.

The team's project manager, Jim Cowie, said the unexpectedly rapid progress of drilling came after decades of experience in Antarctica.

This included a preliminary sediment recovery project run by Antarctica New Zealand at Cape Roberts and involved researchers from seven countries.

World Aids Day will see millions marking their solidarity with those affected by the virus. Charities, campaigners and politicians from Africa to the Americas will speak of their plight and reveal the work that is going on to help them.

But the story of the battle against the epidemic reveals a world divided. A gulf exists between sufferers living in poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the developing world and those in the rich nations of Europe and North America.

The emergence of antiretroviral drugs, hailed by researchers as a "miracle" on a par with the discovery of penicillin, means that in the affluent West at least, HIV is now a treatable disease. The tragic irony is that in Britain infection rates among some communities continue to rise. It was reported last week that incidences among gay men had reached their highest level since 1981 as safe sex practices were being ignored.

In Africa it is a different story. In Rwanda, where rapid advances in treatment have helped hundreds of thousands, doctors call it the "Lazarus effect" - just two antiretroviral drugs can restore a stricken patient to almost full health. Costing less than a dollar a day, they can be bought from any corner shop.

The tragic irony here is that even at this price, they are too expensive. Africa is seeing the fastest growth of any region of the world with an infection rate of 15 per cent. Perhaps hardest hit are the 2 million HIV-affected children of the region, who contracted the virus in the womb or during breastfeeding. Global drug-makers have little interest in making smaller doses of their life-saving medicines. The bigger profits are in the markets of the developed world among the sick, rich adults.

So doctors in Africa are forced to crush adult pills into child-sized doses. However, a deal will be announced today between two Indian drug-makers and former US president Bill Clinton's foundation which promises to reduce dramatically the cost of treating children infected with HIV-Aids next year.

But in some countries the threat of Aids is compounded by political failure. In Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe has promoted traditional medicines over antiretrovirals and displaced 1 million of his poorest urban citizens, disrupting their treatment and increasing the infection rates in rural areas.

And even science has its limits. The hunt for a vaccine two decades after it was claimed to be just five years away from completion remains as elusive as ever.

The British International Development Secretary, Hilary Benn, warned last night that the world may miss its target of providing universal HIV prevention care and treatment by 2010 unless the "stigma and prejudice" surrounding the disease is tackled. "We mustn't let our discomfort or prejudice get in the way of saving lives," he told a lecture at the London School of Economics to mark World Aids Day.

However, the Government was condemned for its policy of deporting asylum-seekers who are HIV positive back to their home countries, where treatment is often not available. The Refugee Council said they should be given special dispensation to stay.

The gap between HIV rhetoric and reality in Zimbabwe has become a chasm. And it is a chasm into which hundreds of thousands of people are falling.

This was the year we were told the government would roll out free antiretroviral drugs to nearly 200,000 of the worst-hit Aids sufferers.

At the first national conference on HIV/Aids in 2004, President Robert Mugabe spoke not only of the need for ARVs but also of the need for "comprehensive programmes for Aids care that include access to counselling and treatment of opportunistic infections, community-based care and orphan support."

But, this year, Zimbabwe has been judged by the World Health Organisation to have the lowest life expectancy in the world. Last month, the cemeteries of the capital, Harare, were declared full. This week more than 3,500 people will die of HIV-related illness and tests on post-natal mothers have found infection rates of 70 per cent. A country whose population at its last census numbered 12 million people is dying in droves; its health system is in total disarray and malnutrition is a daily struggle for the majority of the country.

The reality of the government's Aids policy is perhaps better reflected by Didymus Mutasa, the current Minister of State Security. He has said: "We would be better off with only six million people, with our own people who support the liberation struggle; we don't want all these extra people."

The government's approach to the public health catastrophe is characterised by hypocrisy, indifference and denial. Soaring infection rates have been compounded by a state-sponsored economic meltdown that has provoked a famine in one of Africa's most fertile countries. Much of the country is forced to subsist on one meagre meal a day and ARVs, even if they were supplied, cannot be taken on an empty stomach.

Hospital dispensaries in Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo, are empty. The hospitals themselves are almost empty as unofficial fees have put health care out of the range of ordinary people.

A senior doctor who has watched the disintegration of the health system said: "They [the government] are still living in denial or cloud cuckooland when it comes to Aids. They talk of waiting lists of six to nine months for ARVs. The infected don't live that long."

Patients can suffer symptoms ranging from memory loss to seizures, loss of vision and even dementia. Until recently, these problems were often blamed on a patient's mental state.

However, a growing body of evidence is now leading doctors to accept the reality of "chemo brain".

A study this year suggested that more than 82 per cent of cancer patients may suffer some form of mental impairment. While scientists have suspected that chemotherapy could have an impact on the central nervous system, it was not clear how this might occur.

Mark Noble, from the University of Rochester Medical Centre in New York, who led the research, said: "This is the first study that puts 'chemo brain' on a sound scientific footing, in terms of neurobiology and cellular biology."

The brain is populated with several types of cells that produce or repair normally functioning neurons. These are classified as dividing stem cells, dividing intermediate cells, precursors and progenitors, and non-dividing mature cells. Dr Noble's team exposed healthy brain cells as well as cancer cells to three chemotherapy drugs, carmustine, cisplatin and cytosine arabinoside, used to treat a wide range of diseases, including breast cancer, leukaemia and brain tumours.Tests showed that the drugs were toxic to all the different cell types even at very low concentrations.

The research points to several strategies for making cancer treatments safer, such as applying protective agents and screening to see what cell populations are most at risk.