Wellington  - Two days after a massive earthquake and tsunami ravaged the Pacific island state of Samoa, searchers on Saturday (Friday local time) were still pulling bodies from the rubble in coastal villages and tourist resorts, according to reports from the region.

Survivors reported seeing truckloads of bodies arriving in the capital Apia, and estimates of the death toll ranged from 125 to 149, with at least 31 dead in neighbouring American Samoa and nine in Tonga.

Thousands of people left homeless are living in tents or under tarpaulins on high ground, many afraid to return to the seaside for fear of another deadly wave.

Searching for bodies in the flattened tourist resort village of Lalomanu on Samoa's main island Upolu, New Zealand volunteers were angry over the lack of resources, Wellington's Dominion Post reported.

Working with bare hands to pull apart a 3-metre layer of rubble and fallen trees pushed up against a bank by 6-metre-high waves that followed the magnitude 8 earthquake, Vaughan Simpson, 40, said that troops with trained search dogs were needed desperately.

As another corpse was discovered, he told a reporter: "This body has been found by accident in an area we had not had enough people to work in. They're putting in the bulldozers - you know what bulldozers do to bodies?

"It's unbelievable. Where are the Australian and New Zealand army units, right now, today? We have bodies decaying right around us, and we need help."

New Zealander Tony Hill, who is Samoa's fire commissioner and in charge of the search of Lalomanu, said: "We've found 14 bodies so far yesterday here and 16 in the sea, and we're finding more today. We haven't got enough people."

New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully, who flew to Samoa on a military aircraft to view the relief effort, said, "As of today we have 85 army personnel on deck. There has been no limit on what we are prepared to do to help."

Prime Minister John Key was scheduled to fly Saturday to Apia to talk to the government of Samoa, a former New Zealand territory.

"It is important that I reassure Samoan leaders, face to face, that New Zealand stands ready to assist - not just with short-term disaster relief but with long-term reconstruction," he told the New Zealand Press Association. dpa