A Sino-Singaproean joint rescue team has been unable to find any quake and tsunami survivors in the Indonesian province of Aceh.

They found 33 bodies on Monday in the small town of Taman Siswawhich was completely destroyed.

"Your work is bringing comfort to broken hearts," said a local resident who was looking for his wife and daughter.

Scorching heat has caused many bodies to be putrescent heavily,making the search more difficult, Chinese team leader Yuan Benhangtold Xinhua.

An earthquake, with a magnitude of 8.7 on the Richter scale according to China's State Seismological Bureau, took place off the Indonesian island of Sumatra on Dec. 26, triggering a tsunami that swept across coastal regions of the Indian Ocean rim, wiping off villages. The death toll has exceeded 140,000.

Last Friday, a 35-member rescue team from China arrived in the North Sumatra capital of Medan to join international relief efforts in the Aceh province, where more than 80,000 people were killed in the tsunami.