Indonesia quake toll exceeds 1,000 - official

YOGYAKARTA, May 27 (Reuters) More than 1,000 people are now known to have died in an earthquake that shook the area around Indonesia's ancient royal city of Yogyakarta early today, a government official and state media said.

The Antara news agency quoted Yogyakarta's police chief as giving a total death toll of over 1,400. Meanwhile Kinta, an official from the Social Ministry, told Elshinta news radio: ''For the time being we recorded the total as 1,325 people.'' She said the figure did not include people still buried or trapped under rubble of collapsed buildings.

Yogyakarta is on Indonesia's main island of Java and near Mount Merapi, a volcano that has been on top alert for a major eruption this month.

A vulcanologist in Yogyakarta said the quake was not caused by the volcano, but Merapi's activity increased after the shock.

''After the earthquake there were more clouds coming out of the crater,'' Subandrio, head of the Merapi section at the Centre for Vulcanological Research and Technology Department, told Reuters.

The epicentre of the quake -- which struck just before 6 am (0430 ist) with a magnitude of 6.2, according to the US Geological Survey -- was offshore. Jakarta earthquake centre official Fauzi said there was no tsunami.

Yogyakarta is about 25 km north of the Indian Ocean coast and 440 km east of Jakarta.

Hospital officials said the dead had generally suffered head injuries and broken bones from collapsing buildings.

''Most of them have wounds on their heads. The flow is not going down. The numbers are going to escalate,'' Subandi from the Bethesda hospital morgue in Yogyakarta told Reuters by telephone.

Witnesses said thousands of houses had collapsed in the quake.

Office and government buildings were also in ruins.

Hospital patients had been moved outside due to fears of aftershocks. One Yogyakarta hospital alone said it was treating 1,500 people injured by the quake.

Yogyakarta's airport was closed with a damaged runway, transportation minister Hatta Rajasa told local radio. Access to the city by road was difficult.

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