The magnitude 6.2 quake struck at 5.54am near the ancient city of Yogyakarta as many people slept, causing death and damage in many nearby towns. Roads and bridges were destroyed, hindering efforts to get the wounded to hospitals. Some phone lines also were cut.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ordered the army to help evacuate victims, as panicked residents ran into the smouldering streets, many clutching young children. He said he would be heading to the disaster zone in Central Java province yesterday.

Nine hours after the quake struck, the number of dead stood at 2,517, said Direvan, an official in the social affairs ministry's task force office, with two-thirds of the fatalities in the devastated district of Bantul.

"The numbers just keep rising, " said Arifin Muhadi of the Indonesian Red Cross, adding that nearly 2,900 people were hurt.

The European Commission said it would release up to 3 million in emergency aid.

"Within a few hours, we expect the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to issue a preliminary appeal and we aim to have immediate funding available for essential relief activities, " EU development commissioner Louis Michel said in a statement.

In the disaster zone, doctors struggled to care for the injured, hundreds of whom were lying on plastic sheets, straw mats and even newspapers outside the overcrowded hospitals, some hooked to intravenous drips dangling from trees.

"We need help here, " said Kusmarwanto of Bantul Muhammadiyah Hospital, the closest hospital to the quake's epicentre, adding that his hospital alone had 39 bodies.

At nearby Dr Sardjito Hospital, health officials tallied 60 dead, but more bodies were lined up in the hallway and some family members were taking them home before they could be added to the official toll.

"We have hundreds of injured people. Our emergency care unit is overwhelmed, " said Heru Nugroho.

The quake cracked the runway at the airport in Yogyakarta, home to the famed Borobudur temple, closing it to aircraft until today at least while inspections took place, transport minister Hatta Radjasa said.

Officials said they do not know yet if the ninth century Buddhist temple, considered one of the seven wonders of the world, was affected by the quake.

In hardest-hit Bantul district, Subarjo, a 70-year-old food vendor, was sobbing next to his dead wife, his house completely destroyed. Elsewhere in Mulyodadi village, rescuers tried to pull bodies from the rubble.

"I couldn't help my wife. . . I was trying to rescue my children, one with a broken leg, and then the house collapsed. I couldn't help my wife, " he said weakly. Then, "I have to accept this as our destiny, as God's will."

Yogyakarta is around 18 miles from the sea and in the chaos that followed the quake, false rumours of an impending tsunami sent thousands of people fleeing to higher ground in cars and on motorbikes.

The quake's epicentre was close to the Mount Merapi volcano, which has been rumbling for weeks and sending out large clouds of hot gas and ash.

Activity increased today, with one eruption that came soon after the quake sending debris some two miles down its western flank, but Bambang Dwiyanto of the energy and mineral ministry said the two events did not appear to be directly related.

Almost all the people had already been evacuated away from the volcano's danger zone, and there were no reports of injuries as a result of the eruption.

Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the so-called Pacific 'Ring of Fire', an arc of volcanos and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

A magnitude 9.1 earthquake on 26 December 2004, under the sea off the coast of Indonesia's Sumatra Island, triggered a tsunami that killed more than 131,000 people in Aceh province, and more than 100,000 others in nearly a dozen other countries.