The incident late Thursday is believed to be the first outbreak of its kind in the dozens of makeshift camps holding many of the 400,000 people whose homes were destroyed in the December 26 disaster.

Abu Bakar, the chief of Panah Pasir, an area in northern Aceh, said the sick were taken to hospital in the coastal city of Lhokseumawe because they began vomiting and foaming at the mouth shortly after consuming the noodles.

The batch of dried food was taken from emergency supplies at the camp for 2,100 people. Their origin was not immediately known, but thousands of tonnes of rations have been distributed around Aceh to feed disaster survivors.

Despite fears of widespread disease in the camps for displaced people, there has been relatively little illness, with just a few isolated cases of measles and tetanus.