Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited the area on Friday and ordered the clean-up process following Monday's disaster, which was triggered by a 7.7-magnitude undersea earthquake, to be hastened.

Split into groups of 30, hundreds of soldiers were helping out the relief workers, as truck upon truck crowded the main avenue to the beach which was filled with putrid smoke from the piles of burning debris.

Fishermen and their families worked in teams to salvage nets and other equipment from the piles of rubbish, while workers and volunteers busily repaired hotels not completely destroyed by the onslaught of the waves.

Several of the better-constructed hotels were already touched up and were receiving a fresh lick of paint despite the mounds of debris on their front lawns.

Progress was more marked in town, where the majority of stalls were up and running again in the local market.

"About 70 percent of shops and stalls have today (Saturday) reopened business," said rice seller Mamat Rahmat.

"On Wednesday, those who dared to open numbered less than 20. More opened on Thursday but the market is really alive today."

People were still scared more waves might come but the will to live and to earn money to live overcame that fear, said Rahmat.

"If we don't open business, where would people get their necessities? We also have to live and make some money," he said.

In one way the timing of the tsunami had been kind as traders usually replenish their stocks on Sunday and Monday and most shops had plentiful supplies.

"I had just bought vegetables on Monday and if I don't sell them, they will just rot," said Mimin Sukmana, 27, one of the few traders who reopened as early as Wednesday.

"I'm still afraid of another tsunami but then who will earn money for my family."

Sukarya, the owner of a large grocery store in front of Pangandaran's main market, opened his shop on Saturday after returning from nearby Padaherang, where he had taken refuge after the tsunami.

"Everyone was too afraid. I saw what the tsunami did in Aceh. I just did not want to take any risk," he said, as his wife helps deal with a healthy queue of customers.

For days, only a handful of businesses were open in Pangandaran, all in the areas untouched by the waves that swept up to 500 meters inland, devastating scores of seaside hotels, restaurants, shops and homes.

But for many business was picking up and employees of a small supermarket chain near the main mosque even complained they had no time for a cigarette break because they were so busy.

For others though, it would inevitably take far longer to get things back on track; like Partini and Sutisna who sat dejectedly at their fish stall in the market.

"There are not many buyers. We've had only two since this morning and there are no fresh fish either as none of the fishermen have yet gone back to work," Partini said.

As they had no fresh fish to offer, the couple were instead selling frozen fish they had bought themselves just before the waves came.

"We had just finished unloading the fish and putting them on ice when the tsunami struck," Sutisna said.

Half-way down a peninsula in Pangandaran that was badly hit by the tsunami, a lone beach-side shop looks for unlikely customers in amongst the surrounding ruins and debris.

"If it was not my own stall, I would not return here but we have to make a living," said Yenni, 28, the wife of the shop-owner.

Yenni was caught by the waves that swept both sides of the peninsula on Monday but was saved, along with six customers who had been browsing goods in the shop, by running up to the top floor of the building.

"I'm still very much afraid and every time there is a rush of people or motorcycles, my knees go weak," she said, adding that people rushing to a nearby aid distribution center on Friday had panicked her into closing the shop again.

"My daughters, 10 and six years old, both did not want me to return here. They are very much traumatized by the tsunami and refused to come here again," she said, adding that she and her family were now sheltering at a relative's house in Babakan, far from the coast.

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