For days, Nano Wiratno had been seeking word of his older brother Adian in Palu, the Indonesian city that was devastated by an earthquake and tsunami last week.

The 27-year-old had travelled 380 miles from his home in Luwuk and searched all over, to no avail. “Adian has not answered his phone since Friday,” Nano said. “I also tried to call his wife, but going by her WhatsApp status the last time she was online was a few minutes before the quake.”

Nano’s latest port of call was Palu’s police hospital, where he joined scores of bereaved families ready to make a positive identification of dead relatives. As of Thursday he still hadn’t found his brother.

A disaster victim identification team at the hospital had been labouring tirelessly for six days to try to identify more than 700 bodies, taking fingerprints, conducting dental examinations and noting distinctive markings, scars or tattoos. On Thursday that process ended. A whiteboard erected outside the entrance conveyed an announcement that from now on all bodies found would be sent directly to graveyards.

The team of 72 forensic specialists and medics from all over Indonesia identified 218 victims by matching post- and antemortem data. The unidentified were buried in a mass grave in Paboya, in the hills above Palu. Dr Lisa Cancer, the head of the identification team, said the bodies had to be disposed of within a matter of days for health reasons.

A man navigates an earthquake-devastated area in Balaroa on Thursday. Photograph: Mast Irham/EPA

For relatives of the initial wave of victims, there is a comprehensive dataset that may bring closure in the coming weeks and months. But authorities have decided it is now more important to focus on the living than to continue with the difficult and costly forensic process.

As of Thursday morning the official death toll from the disaster stood at 1,424. On the ground, people believe it is far higher.

In the villages of Petobo and Balaroa, search and rescue teams were moving cautiously and slowly through the wreckage. “We are about 20% through the evacuation process, it is still ongoing,” said Hasbin Basri, a Balaroa official. “We think more or less there could be 2,000 dead here.”

In Petobo, a village hit by the earthquake and liquefaction that covered the village in metres of mud, it is feared that several thousand more people could be dead. As of Wednesday 19 victims had been pulled out.

On Cimanggis Road in Balaroa, people were walking past scenes of utter devastation, wearing T-shirts or scarves pulled up around their faces. The jarring smell of dead bodies – five corpses were lined up in bodybags on Thursday morning – wafted strongly up the hill.

It is hard to take in the destruction: all around, houses, cars and roads have been turned upside down or inside out. In a few minutes an entire village was reduced to something resembling a municipal tip. Piles of bricks are mixed up with dismembered doors and roofs, children’s toys and odd bits of sports equipment.

A person holds a stuffed toy in Petobo village, Palu. Photograph: Hotli Simanjuntak/EPA

Some residents have left messages on the few walls still standing to inform friends and family they are alive. “Siva and Dina survived and are on Cimanggis Rd, near the factory,” says one.

Other messages, including posters for missing children, are heartbreaking. One pinned on the village entrance gate depicts Muhammad Gibran, aged six years and 10 months, wearing his school uniform of a white shirt and red tie, his blue backpack slung over his shoulders.

Save the Children has expressed concern for young people lost or separated from their families in the disaster, saying some were now sleeping on the streets. The aid agency is working to establish family tracing and reunification procedures.

“Reaching communities in Sulawesi is really challenging due to its remoteness, coupled with the devastation that the tsunami has [caused], cutting off transport links, which makes children separated from their families even more vulnerable,” said Zubedy Koteng, a child protection adviser.

An aerial picture taken with a drone camera above Balaroa. Photograph: Mast Irham/EPA

Driving around surveying the damage, it is apparent that parts of Palu are relatively unscathed by the disaster. But in the areas that were hard hit – places such as Donggala, Talise Beach, Petobo, Sigi and Balaroa – people talk about what happened here in almost apocalyptic terms.

Abdul Maruf, a father of three from Balaroa, said he was preparing for Magrib prayer at dusk when he felt the earth move wildly beneath him. “I thought it was the final day,” he said on Thursday. “Judgment day.”