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More than 3,000 people have been killed and thousands more injured by a strong earthquake that struck the Indonesian island of Java, officials have said.

The quake, measuring 6.2, flattened buildings in a densely-populated area south of the city of Yogyakarta, near the southern coast of Java.

The Indonesian Red Cross estimates some 200,000 people fled their homes after the quake hit early in the morning.

Electricity and communications across the city were also down, police said.
At least 2,900 people have been seriously injured, and many more are still thought to be trapped under rubble and collapsed buildings.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono called on rescuers to work around the clock, as he visited the area with a team of Cabinet ministers on Saturday.

He has also ordered the military to help evacuate victims.

The Indonesian Red Cross said it had sent rapid response teams to the area, and 21 field hospital units were working at full capacity.

The United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said a UN disaster response team was ready to help with humanitarian relief, the AFP news agency reported.

Among the many countries promising aid are Malaysia, Japan, Russia and the European Union.

The effects of the quake closed Yogyakarta's airport. Local media said the runway had cracked and part of a roof had caved in.

Click here to see a map of Pacific Ring of Fire

Yogyakarta is near the Mount Merapi volcano, which threatened to erupt earlier this month, forcing thousands of people to be evacuated.

Experts were divided over whether the quake would affect Merapi, but there are reports of heightened activity at the volcano. There was an eruption soon after the quake which sent debris some 3.5km (2 miles) down its western side.

Officials said that although the area affected was coastal there was no tsunami resulting from the quake.

The quake hit at 0554 local time (2253 GMT Friday), around 25km (15 miles) south of the city of Yogyakarta, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said.

Yogyakarta, Indonesia's ancient royal capital and one of its biggest cities, is about 440km (275 miles) south-east of the capital, Jakarta.

"The earthquake was felt to be massive - larger than the locals here say they've felt in their lives," said Brook Weisman-Ross, regional disaster co-ordinator for Plan International children's charity in Java.

"I was shaken from my bed... As furniture was falling, concrete chunks started falling from my hotel room as people were running out in panic in their bedclothes," he told the BBC.

He said there was extensive damage across the city and that many of the smaller, older houses had collapsed.

But a wide swathe south of the city, in the Bantul and Kulonprogo regions, appears to be the worst hit.

The BBC's Orlando Guzman in Yogyakarta says every other house on the main road south of the city is either flattened or seriously damaged.

Another correspondent in the area, Andrew Harding, says there are a number of dead bodies by the side of the road.

A government official said nearly two thirds of the deaths caused by the earthquake were in Bantul, the Associated Press reported.

Aftershocks

Local radio said there were not enough doctors to cope with the numbers of injured.

People were ferried to hospital in lorries and buses, or made the journey on foot, because of a shortage of ambulances.

Aftershocks have forced medical staff to move injured patients outside.

Orlando Guzman says people here, who have been living in fear of a volcanic eruption for weeks, are very much still on edge. Many are still afraid to go back to their houses.

Mosques, churches and hospitals have been housing people who have fled their homes.

"We're still afraid. We don't want to go home," said Hendra, one of hundreds of people who took refuge at Yogyakarta's Marganingsih Catholic Church.

Indonesia is in a zone known as the Pacific "ring of fire", which is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity.

In December 2004, a huge earthquake off Indonesia's coast killed hundreds of thousands of people across the Indian Ocean by triggering a tsunami.

Ace Pace wrote: KAN?

Terradaily.com wrote:Indonesia quake death toll nearly 5,700

by Staff Writers
Jakarta (AFP) May 30, 2006
The death toll from the earthquake that rocked Indonesia's main island of Java at the weekend has risen to at least 5,698, the social affairs ministry said late Tuesday.

The majority of those killed in Saturday's 6.3-magnitude quake -- 3,580 people -- lived in Bantul district, south of the central city of Yogyakarta.

More than 1,660 others died in Klaten district, in Central Java province, the ministry said.

The ministry had previously put the death toll from the catastrophe at 5,427.

Officials at the ministry put the total number of injured at nearly 10,700, three-quarters of them seriously hurt.

Indonesia's Merapi spews longer trails of lava

Indonesia's Mount Merapi volcano sends trails of lava running down its slopes. Fears of an erruption are heightened just days after a devastating earthquake nearby. Photo courtesy of AFP.
by Staff Writers
Jakarta (AFP) May 31, 2006
Indonesia's Mount Merapi volcano maintained a high level of activity for a fifth consecutive day Wednesday, spewing heat clouds and longer trails of lava down its slopes, geologists said.

In the first six hours of Wednesday, Merapi sent 162 lava trails spilling down its slopes, some of them up to 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) long, according to data released by the vulcanology office in Yogyakarta, south of the peak.

The simmering volcano also spewed deadly heat clouds and sent plumes of smoke 700 meters (2,300 feet) into the air, scientists said.

Scientists have warned that the recent strong earthquake that hit the region between Mount Merapi and the Indian Ocean on Saturday, killing more than 5,800 people, could increase the threat posed by the smouldering volcano.

They warned that the magma dome forming at the peak may crack or collapse, spewing out millions of cubic metres of volcanic rock and lava.

The vulcanology office also recorded 40 aftershocks on Tuesday in the wake of Saturday's earthquake and 24 in the first six hours of Wednesday, all of them measuring less than 4.0 on the Richter scale.

Mayabird wrote:So KAN, since you're closer and probably have more information on what's going on, anything we can do? What's the situation?

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote: However, I remember reading some article during Aceh Tsunami. See, bringing gallons of water (for the victims who need food and water) to the location was almost impractical at that time, but I remember about some guys who brought a mini, portable equipment that can drill a water well on site. That provide quick relief for the evacuating victims who were still waiting for the water tanks to come. So I guess what we need is some creative method to bypass the logistic problems.

Mayabird wrote: You mean like portable, hand-cranked or -pumped water filters for drinking water instead of bringing in water? It wouldn't need gas or electricity, and it could produce much more than its weight and size in water over a course of hours or days.